Why you’re leaving money on the table by not using business intelligence

Why you’re leaving money on the table by not using business intelligence

Chances are you’re surrounded by a wealth of raw data about your resources, customers, their purchasing behaviors, as well as your competitors. That data might be hidden in plain sight in different databases within your business or even externally, such as on social media.

But, what to do with all that data?

Often businesses lack the time and know-how to assess digital technologies and analyze this rich data, and almost 36% of companies don’t fully exploit the data at their disposal. That’s despite the low-cost entry barrier and efficiency gains on offer to work through the data for insights.

Business intelligence can do this.

It’s an essential digital solution to help companies transform data into valuable knowledge that feeds strategies for competitiveness and sustainability.

The engine of business intelligence

What’s under the hood of business intelligence technologies?

It’s brimming with computational processes. They include data mining, statistical analysis, data visualization, data preparation, reporting, descriptive analytics, querying, performance metrics and benchmarking, as well as visual analysis.

Enterprises use business intelligence for a helicopter right down to a granular view of their operations to make smarter, evidence-based decisions.


Armed with business intelligence, you can exploit 100% of data in a valuable way.


For example, if your business operates from physical premises, typically, you’d use just 20% of your building data. Armed with business intelligence, you can exploit 100% in a valuable way. That “gold mine” of data includes property maintenance, heating/cooling, utilities and more.

Getting descriptive + predictive

Rather than relying on gut feel, anecdote and experience only, this technology allows you to compare your historical data with what’s happening now in your business context. That’s descriptive analytics. Harnessing predictive analytics as well helps pave the way for your future operations. It’s ideal for insights to build short-term to long-term business strategies.

How companies transform data

Companies are stepping out of their comfort zone of just studying static spreadsheets. They’re harnessing business intelligence solutions to:

  • Help guide better quality data collection
  • Churn through data and extract knowledge quickly
  • Reduce costs, lower margins and maximize revenue
  • Identify inefficient spending and business processes
  • Automate links between systems for invoicing and payments
  • Seamlessly integrate suppliers, customers’ businesses, logistics, marketing operations, production/service operations, re-ordering/replacement systems
  • Enhance the customer experience
  • Deliver intelligence reports with actionable insights
  • Nudge staff teams out of their silos with enterprise-wide perspectives
  • Give customers peace of mind their data is kept private and secure
  • Make evidence-based decisions
  • Keep your data secure from competitors’ eyes, yet
  • Allow you to identify market trends and analyze competitors

It might sound like this technology complicates your processes. It can help to automate and simplify how you work, leaving more time to focus on activities that add value.

And business intelligence isn’t an “IT project” you delegate. It’s meant for all staff to access and share.

Power of visualizations

You’ll get a sense of the power of business intelligence solutions from their intuitive dashboards. You can access these via your laptop or smartphone for intuitive snapshots of your business operations. It’s easy to flip that data for more detail or into meaningful visualizations.

You’ll be able to see what’s happening, why, what will happen next and what’s the best thing that can happen in your business. Also, this technology can deliver ad hoc reports, alerts, do statistical analysis, forecasting, extrapolate, create predictive models and optimize your business.

So, how much money are you leaving on the table?

Content created and provided by ONEAFFINITI.