How Can Business Intelligence and Data Analytics Improve Decision-making?

What is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence refers to the technology that helps businesses organize, analyze and contextualize their business data from various verticals of their operation. Corporations often use business intelligence tools to store and process vast amounts of information about their organization, which can then be used to track business trends over time.

The concept of business intelligence can be divided into four components-

1. Data warehouse- A data warehouse stores a company's information in a centralized, accessible location.
   
2. Data mining- Business analytics or data mining tools analyze data in the data warehouse.
   
3. Business performance management- BPM tools monitor and analyze business practices to reach the operation's goals.
   
4. Interactive dashboard- An user interface with data visualization tools shows progress towards goals, monitoring KPIs for consistency.

What is Data Analytics?

Before we delve into data analytics, let us first understand what constitutes data. Data is most simply described as informationa collection of statistics or facts that can be used for analysis. Data, in itself, doesn't hold much meaning. What makes data truly meaningful is how we use it after collecting it. Once we process and analyze the information we have gathered, real insight comes to the fore.

There are different types of data, and it's important to distinguish these types. For example, data is generated from selling an item in a restaurant. This information log is called transactional data and includes details like the average amount spent per transaction, the average number of items ordered per transaction, specific products ordered in each transaction, and dates and times when transactions occurred. Then, there's product data, which includes details about the most popular menu items and the hours when they're most commonly ordered.

Data analytics is a technology-driven discipline based on mathematical models, programming and statistical tools that discover insights from dataa form of data science. The main objective of data analytics is to help businesses understand its customers, products, competitors, and sectors in order to make informed decisions in the future. For best results, data analysts rely on a range of data management products such as data scrubbing and transformation software, modeling software, and more.

There are four main types of analytics- descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive. Descriptive analytics lets you analyze where your company is at this very moment in time. Diagnostic analytics helps you determine why a specific situation has occurred, like a spike in server error rates during a specific period. Predictive analytics lets you know when an event is likely to occur againevents triggered by the weather are an example of this. Finally, prescriptive analytics not only tells you when something may happen again but also recommends actions you can take to achieve a desired outcome.

Data analytics is becoming increasingly important in businesses because it offers insights into the past in order to impact the future choices of a business.

How Does BI and Analytics Software Work?

Focused on the efficient transitioning of information, business intelligence tools help with Data Integration, analysis, and presentation so that decisions can be made in line with an organization's goals. Eliminating the need to dig through large amounts of data manually, modern business intelligence tools can be easily used by management and employees and not just business intelligence analysts. The key difference between business intelligence and data analytics is that business intelligence gathers, stores and processes data. Analytics turns data into insights that help businesses make better decisions. Together, they yield more informed results.

Business intelligence (BI) and analytics help identify business blindspots. By unearthing these problem areas, a business can avoid losing money. With more data collected over time, predictive machine learning algorithms will refine projections and alter business strategies to maximize sales and ensure consistent growth, developing clearer patterns.

The Top Benefits of business intelligence and data analytics software are to help companies evaluate information and make decisions that increase revenue and ultimately grow the operation. There's a marked difference between businesses that leverage business intelligence and data analytics and those that don't.

For example, these software solutions collect statistics related to sales or the number of customers who have placed orders and organize these statistics so they can be easily read. Then, generating predictions using regression models to forecast what may happen during holidays, new product launches, and changes in the market, they analyze the data to produce business trends and recommend solutions or improvements specific to each company's situation.

In addition, some companies elect to integrate their analytics software with other technology tools like point-of-sale (POS) systems, inventory management systems, and warehouse management systems, which are endpoints or Tiers. These tools then analyze data from these disparate systems and produce reports in real time.

It is important to note that Business Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence are different, but complementary nonetheless. AI refers to computer intelligence, while BI involves business decision-making that data analysis and visualization can yield. Business intelligence platforms analyze and interpret big data with BI software tools. It enables users to mine for patterns in large data sets that can provide insights into past performance, guide decision-making for future action, and reveal hidden relations in the data. One cannot pit artificial intelligence against business intelligence. They are complementary and yield better results in collaboration.

Examples of Data Analytics Tools

There are a variety of data analytics tools available, each with its own unique features and capabilities. Some of the popular data analytics tools include-

Microsoft Excel- This is probably one of the more popular tools for data analytics used across industries. It is relatively easy to use and has versatile features. It allows users to share workbooks, work on the latest version for real time collaboration, add data to Excel directly from a photo, and so on. Avaialble in three categories- For Home, Business and Enterprises, these products have various versions that differ by features and pricing options.

QlikView- QlikView is a self service data visualization and analytics suite. It enables organizations with an easy way to handle big data and visualizations at scale and helps to accelerate business value through accurate insights. In addition, Qlik recently launched its intelligent alerting platform Qlik Alerting for data analytics. This provides easy access to real time analytics that enable enhanced decision-making and detecting business performance issues before they impact the bottom-line. As a result, organizations can identify potential problems or issues in running their operations, track key trends in the industry, and make better business decisions based on collected data via useful alerts.

Examples of BI Tools

Some business intelligence tools support different types of industries, while others entirely focus on one specific industry or type of business. Therefore, the first step to take before selecting a business intelligence data tool is to consider the type of data you need to analyze. This will help narrow down your choices and select a tool that works for your specific needs.

Zip Reporting- Zip Reporting from Hubworks is a comprehensive tool developed especially for
the restaurant business. It enables an operation to review its goals and targets in real time. Zip Reporting also pulls up historical data reports so that you can compare your business's performance over time. It is ideal for businesses with multiple locations because it centralizes data in one place, and yet tracks different metrics for each location.

Microsoft Power BI- Power BI is a comprehensive business intelligence solution from Microsoft that combines ready-made templates and customization to help businesses analyze their data efficiently. Power BI allows corporations to track every transaction undertaken by the customer and identifies trends to create relevant strategies to drive up business inquiry. In addition, Power BI has an interface based on Microsoft Office 365, making it easy for users to use the software.

How Can These Tools Help Businesses Make Better Decisions?

Let's understand this with an example. Starbucks can show us how its BI and analytics propels its business strategies forward. The company benefits tremendously by analyzing what its customers are looking for. It uses this data to direct its business decisions and to develop or improve products. For example, over a decade ago, Starbucks introduced pumpkin-flavored beverages during Halloween. Since then, Starbucks has perfected its range of seasonal pumpkin-inspired drinks and now sells pumpkin-flavored everythingfrom lattes to BBQ sauce! This has led to an influx in traffic in October each year.

Currently, Starbucks uses Atlas, an in-house mapping and business intelligence platform that creates complex models driven by data collected from various internal and external sources. As part of its growth strategy, the coffee chain plans to open 3,000 stores in mainland China. Selection of the correct site location is one of the most crucial aspects for the success of this expansion plan. So how has the chain managed seamless project management?

It employs advanced algorithms to create its site selection criteria, weaving together various data points such as weather, automobile traffic and consumer demographics such as age-range, income levels, coffee purchase patterns, and the level of mobile phone ownership for its site selection strategy. It even examines what kind of non-Starbucks beverages retail in the region.

Now sales and weather data individually may tell two different stories. But blending various data points together can offer the company unique insights. For example, if it is forecasted to be hotter than normal in a specific location, the company plans to geo-design promotions themed toward cold beverages. This, will make drinkers more likely to purchase something cool to drink that day at their local store.

Business intelligence and analytics are key tools for any company that seeks to improve its operations over time. It can be used in almost all areas of your business and will produce visible results as long as you pair the technology with appropriate action. For example, Starbucks' massive expansion from one store in 1971, to 32,000 stores worldwide is an eye-opener to the power of BI and analytics.

Both tools function in unison, making it easy for a data analyst, business owner, or manager to collect crucial data and view it visually on interactive dashboards. They can then make real time changes to processes like forecasting, planning, and financial status tracking. And as mentioned earlier, most tools can be tailored to the specific needs of the workplace.

Top 3 Business Intelligence and Data Analytics Software Solutions

Altametrics Business Intelligence-
This software aggregates billions of records in real time and interprets complex data in seconds. It's ideal for cafes, bars, pubs, coffee shops or any other business with a heavy footfall. Its business intelligence tools create reports on a number of metrics, and if the report you're looking for isn't available, the software allows you to create your own custom report. In addition, the Altametrics virtual coach Simon helps users resolve problems unearthed by its intelligence and analytics reports. This edges the business towards better decisions in more ways than one.

Tableau-
Tableau Desktop is a data discovery and exploration application that lets you create visualizations for any dataexploring different views and combining multiple databases. Tableau Server, a cloud-based software, allows you to then publish these visualizations on a common and secure place on the Internet for anyone with permission to view and interact with on their dashboard. The aim is to make data analytics easy and accessible. By combining various types of customer data from different sources, businesses can easily produce insights and share these live on their websites, making it easier for consumers to access, understand and engage with.

Hootsuite Insights-
Hootsuite analyzes every mention of your brand across various web platforms and social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, tracking the reach of your content to your target audience. In addition, the audience's reaction to this content is measured using analytics, by counting how many posts are generated in response to your brand. Measuring is made easy with Hootsuite. It sets up a stream for particular keywords that users might use when mentioning or discussing your brand on social media sites. Other features within Hootsuite include an Audience Analysis option that leverages Insights data, along with a mapping tool and demographic analysis to offer a breakdown of audience location and gender, along with their age-range preferences.