Countless articles have been written about the growth of data analytics and business intelligence and their impact on countless companies, from small businesses to large enterprises. But, just like in any other area of a business, the only thing that really convinces anyone is hard, measurable facts. A picture is worth a thousand words as they say, and in business, the same could be said about visual data. So here are a few “pictures” of what BI can do.
1. BI can put palm-readers out of business.
A group of researchers from the University of Rochester and Microsoft found that, using data from 32,000 days of GPS readings taken from 703 people driving 396 vehicles, they could predict where someone would be with 80% accuracy, wait for it… 80 weeks into the future.
While this seems a little bit like showing off, forecasts like this could have valuable business applications. Knowing a customer’s location in the future could allow travel companies to offer custom-tailored deals or promotions for that destination, putting them miles ahead of the competition. The same would be true of knowing clients’ buying habits during a given time of year.
2. Average ROI for BI Projects is over 1,000%.
A study by Nucleus Research found that the average business intelligence initiative returned $10.66 for every
dollar invested in it.
This one doesn’t really need any explanation. You will be hard pressed to find another investment that returns over $10 on the dollar for your business.
3. 74% of organizations without BI experience one or more negative consequences.
An effective implementation of BI improves the reliability of your business statistics, improves daily operational efficiency, and enables effective, timely decision making. Without BI, those areas suffer.
Info Tech, an IT research group, reported that 74% of companies found that their daily operations were negatively affected by a lack of accurate, reliable business intelligence. Combined with the benefits BI can provide, specifically increases in efficiency and productivity, neglecting to implement BI can cost a company dearly.
4. Companies who use BI make better, faster decisions than those who don’t.
A study by Bain and Company found that the use of BI is a common denominator of leading companies. From quick, effective decision making to bottom line performance, BI analytics help companies distance themselves from their competition.
Specifically, they found companies that effectively use analytics are 2X more likely to have top-quartile financial performance, 3X more likely to execute decisions as intended, and 5X more likely to make decisions “much faster” than their competition.
If you are in a dogfight for market share with your competition, you need the make the right investments, the ones which will put you ahead of the pack. The numbers speak for themselves; BI is a good investment.
5. BI is only getting bigger. Much bigger.
Multiple experts have projected the BI industry to experience explosive growth in the next few years. Forbes summarized these various projections and came up with the following predictions:
- Global spending on business intelligence hardware, software, and services will grow 30% by 2018, achieving a total market value of $114B.
- Cloud-based Business Intelligence will experience a similar growth rate: 31% by 2018 (from $.75B to $2.94B).
Businesses all across the globe are realizing the potential benefits of business intelligence, driving the projected growth in the BI/Big Data industry. They are seeing impressive ROI, improved decision making, and separation from the competition resulting from their BI investments. Now is the time to look into deploying business intelligence. If you wait, you may end up having to play catch up.
If you have any questions about business intelligence or want to find out how Power BI can help your business specifically, call Jon Thompson at Blue Margin, Inc. He can be reached at 970-214-1652.