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Business Intelligence is no-longer a futuristic science reserved for giant tech corporations. In fact, more and more businesses are realising that if they don’t begin their BI journey soon, their competitors will eat their lunch.

Here are five compelling reasons that you should get started on your Business Intelligence journey sooner, rather than later:

1.Understand your customers

Knowing your customers is key to running a successful business. The more you know about your customers, the better you can adapt your products and services to their needs – and ultimately boost profits and loyalty. We created a simple-to-use reporting system for Bistro Pierre, enabling them to compare the performance of individual dishes, analyse spend-per-head and measure the success of promotions and loyalty schemes. Laura Cox, Commercial Accountant and Systems Manager at Bistrot Pierre said: “change++ has delivered a solution that can grow with the business, and we are already reaping the benefits of improved insight.”

2.Make smarter decisions

In a fast-changing retail environment, decision makers need access to real-time information. With live dashboards you don’t have to wait for weekly reports – you can interrogate the latest data, easily, whenever you need to. change++ built an interactive dashboard to put the information Welcome Break Business Managers need, at their fingertips. According to Welcome Break IT Director, David Willock: “Everyone responsible for influencing performance in the business now has access to a flexible tool that tells them at a glance where to focus attention.”

3.See one version of the truth

Making sense of data from disparate sources can be a real challenge – and very draining on resources. However, with the right BI tools you can take data from a range of different sources and view it on one platform. This is especially useful if you’re merging two businesses – as the Stonegate Pub Company found when it acquired the Yates and Slug and Lettuce brands from Town and City. change++ used data integration tools from IBM’s Cognos Enterprise suite to combine data from both the Stonegate and Town and City finance systems to deliver a single view across the entire estate. Hazell Tyrrell, Head of Central Operations at Stonegate Pub Company, explains: “We have ambitious growth plans and choose partners we know can support us. change++ have proved themselves over many years and we rely on their expertise in Business Intelligence.”

4.Cut out costly manual processes

Many businesses are currently having to manage with restricted budgets and are trying to get by with limited resources. BI tools can help you do more with less by removing unnecessary manual steps in business processes. change++ created an automated reporting tool enabling London taxi operators to submit vehicle and driver information directly to Transport for London’s database – saving the organisation from processing 1000s of emails each week. Simone Oyekanmi, Licensing Manager for London taxi and private hire vehicles at TfL, said; “The solution delivers a much quicker, easier and more secure process for operators to share data.”

5.Turn big data into actionable insights

One particular strength of BI is its ability to keep track of large data sets. The delivery company Collect Plus, process tens of thousands of parcels daily. Tracking events at each point in a parcels journey gives a huge volume of data. change++ created a business analytics solution to enable Collect Plus to access critical business information, quickly answer queries and deliver comprehensive reporting for its customers. Operations and Service Director, Mark Lawrence said: “I don’t think we ever envisaged, when we originally sat down with change++ to work on our requirements, the level and value of insight we could gain from our data using IBM Cognos BI. We’re delighted with its capabilities and the actionable insight it has delivered.”

change++’s BI experts can review your existing business intelligence and data landscape and give you an unbiased view of what you could achieve. Start your journey today with a Business Intelligence Health Check.