How to use your data to solve business problems

When you hear terms like data fight, data analysis or Company Information do you turn off automatically? In today’s environment, the amount of new vocabulary, tools and technologies is overwhelming. You may think that these possibilities are reserved for large companies with large budgets.

Large organizations often have teams with resources dedicated to collecting, transforming, and analyzing data. Using this information leads to meaningful business insights and enables strategic decision-making. However, with today’s tools and technologies, small and medium-sized organizations also have a great opportunity to harness the power of their data.

Data dispute, data analysis and business intelligence Oh My!

The best place to start is by identifying the questions you find difficult to answer or a problem you find difficult to solve. Then identify the data needed to address the question or problem.

The data you need is often in different systems, in different formats, and relatively unusable. Data dispute is the process of obtaining data, cleaning it and converting it into a usable format. Once this is complete you are ready for data analysisthe process of analyzing data to draw insights and conclusions.

For example, say you are trying to determine whether you should increase the price of a product. The first step would be to define the problem statement. Should I increase the price of my product and what is the likely outcome if I do (such as increased revenue, lost sales, lost customers)?

The second step would be to identify the data needed to complete an analysis. Perhaps you would get your sales data, product cost data and customer sentiment data (data quarrel). You then analyze the data to identify potential trends (e.g., sales volume decreases as price increases, material costs increase over the past five months), relationships (when customer sentiment is high, they are willing to pay more), and any other relevant information.

Ultimately, when all the data has been collected and analyzed, you would decide whether to increase the cost of your product. Business Intelligence is this general process of collecting and using data to respond, respond, or report.

Get started with data and tools you already have

It doesn’t take a big budget or dedicated staff to start using data in your organization. In fact, you may already have some of the most useful tools right at your fingertips. This can include reports prepared by your sales team, email marketing reports, financial reports, social media data feeds, and website analytics.

By leveraging this data and using it effectively, you can achieve a wide range of objectives and gain a strategic advantage over your competitors. For example, effective business intelligence can help you:

• Market more effectively to customers
• Monitor and track results more closely
• Identify customer needs faster
• Manage inventory more efficiently
• Sales and revenue forecasts improve forecast
• Streamline operations
• Reduce costs

Automation

Historically, the process of acquiring, analyzing and exploiting data has been manually intensive. With so many systems and data formats and seemingly infinite information, the process of answering a question or solving a problem can take months.

There is a better solution. By leveraging tools and technologies that are widely available today, you can automate the process of sourcing, transforming, and analyzing your data. Some of the more popular tools are:

• Microsoft Power BI – Suite of cloud-based business analytics tools with a 360-degree view of your most important data and the ability to build custom dashboards. In fact, you may already have this tool as part of your Microsoft software suite.
• Tableau Desktop Interactive dashboards and visual analytics with drag and drop.
• House Business intelligence platform with strong connectivity to thousands of data sources and built-in extract-transform-load (ETL) capabilities.
• Alteryx APA Platform End-to-end automation of data acquisition, transformation, and analytics

Ready to start solving your challenges?

Don’t assume that data contention, data analytics, and business intelligence only apply to large organizations. If you’re ready to harness the power of your data to make decisions, we can help. Talk to your advisor about the potential benefits of launching a business intelligence initiative today.

All content in this article is for informational purposes only. Matters discussed in this article are subject to change. For current information on this topic, please contact a James Moore professional. James Moore cannot be held responsible for any claim, loss, damage or inconvenience caused as a result of any information contained in these pages or information accessible through this site.