8 signs your organization needs an easy-to-use BI solution

Everything is going wrong. Your sales and marketing managers are panicking. Your last marketing campaign – a disaster. Profits are dropping, market share decreasing, and no one knows how to fix the debilitating trend.

If only you’d had a Business Intelligence (BI) solution to keep it all in check.

But where’d it all go wrong? What are the key indictors that your company needs to implement a BI solution?

1.  You can’t find important information

A junior marketing executive has compiled a report showing annual growth of customer base and purchase per customer for each of your market segments. You can’t find it. No one else has seen said report.

2.  Lack of business insights: Can’t perform in-depth analysis of company data assets

You operate a chain of DVD stores. You know which of your stores sell the most product, but you have no idea which stores sell the most product per category, eg: action, drama, comedy. How are you supposed to effectively target your marketing efforts or send the correct quantities of stock to each store?

3.  No system for saving and accessing historical data

You want to review your sales figures for last financial year and compare them with actual sales and sales targets for this financial year. However, these figures are kept in a separate spreadsheet. The employee responsible for maintaining the spreadsheet is gone, and consequently, so is last year’s sales data.

4.  Cross-departmental fighting: Conflicting information

Departmental meetings descend into unproductive and morale-damaging infighting because each department head has been keeping individual records of key performance figures. The figures conflict, but everyone insists THEIR version is correct to avoid embarrassment.

5.  Your current reporting and analytics system is complicated

You have only bought a handful of licenses for your current data analysis tool. It’s expensive and hard-to-use, restricting the flow of information to key personnel. Even those who have access to the program are frustrated by its complexity. Most users have reverted back to using spreadsheets.

6.  Key personnel don’t have the information they need to act: You let business opportunities slip

Key decision-makers do not have easy and fast access to key business metrics. As a result, your business is inflexible. You are unable to respond quickly and accurately to market places changes and opportunities. Competitors have the upper hand.

7.  Difficulty prioritizing tasks and detecting problems

You don’t have access to easy data analysis and reports. Identifying trends in your data set is virtually impossible, and even if they could be identified, there is no reporting system in place to deliver that information to key personnel. Suddenly, you run out of a stocked item that you have promised consumers will always be available. No one was alerted to the dwindling stock levels. Your reputation is damaged.

8.  Actions are poorly aligned with strategic organizational goals

There is a lack of organizational cohesion. Departmental managers are confused how their actions are supporting overarching organizational goals. Key targets in your annual business plan are missed. Finger-pointing is rife.