4 Better Ways to Successfully Implement Business Analytics

Guest post by Sam Makad

The world of business is constantly being reshaped by new technologies and achievements from various industries. Many new factors are entering the business success equation on a daily basis, requiring the immediate attention of entrepreneurs.

Changes in the business world are not only driven by these factors, but also by so many others. Such as, focus on increased ROI, customer satisfaction, efficient project management, task delegation, smooth onboarding and other things in close relation to a business organization and its customers.

With marketing becoming client-centric and extra focus being placed on customer experience, data has never been as valuable as it is now. Before the new methods of data extraction and reading were available, business people were forced to rely on trial and error whenever they were adopting new methods and deciding upon which actions to take.

This is where business analytics plays a crucial role. Well-implemented analytics will make sure that all the data becomes structured, valuable and easily interpretable. Needless to say, business analytics will empower the managers with precious information that is crucial for the decision-making process and vital for reaching the goals that were put in the business plan. Here are some ideas on how to successfully implement business analytics in order to reap as many benefits as you can.

Reactive and Proactive Management

Every business operates according to a pre-designed business plan. The crucial part of any business plan is the goals and the means of achieving them. The common practice before approaching the design of such a plan is to conduct market research to get a better insight into target customers, their needs and what you can offer in order to convert prospects into customers.

All this data that was gathered before launching a business, combined with the data gathered in the first few months of operations is a powerful resource salvageable by business analytics methods. And when it comes to meeting your business goals, business analytics is the best method to help you determine your progress and identify possible problems before it becomes too late to come up with a solution.

This is the reason why so many companies are adopting data-driven strategies on a global scale. Quantitative results provide far more fertile grounds for making business decisions, both for the present as well as for the future. But, before you can salvage the data and get an answer based on which you can take action, you will need to formulate insightful questions.

Identifying the possible problem and coming up with the right question are the two things of utmost importance if you want to reap all the benefits of business analytics. Take your time, create a team and try to come up with those questions. This will help you communicate with a business analytics vendor on a more professional level, and you will get the feedback on whether what you are looking for is possible with the tools they are offering.

Data-Driven Company Culture

Collected and analyzed data should not only be reserved for the high-ranking managers in your organization. More and more organizations involve whole teams in the decision-making process since it ensures the accuracy of decisions.

And when you think about it, an accurate and quick decision is what can give a company the competitive edge. Which, on the other hand, is one of the most important goals, since all industries are driven by oversaturated and volatile markets. And business analytics is just the tool that can help a company stay ahead of the competition.

With so much compiled data in the hands of every employee, an organization as a whole will be able to answer the market’s requirements by coming up with a smart decision in a very short amount of time. Making the business analytics a part of the company culture is a very smart move.

Furthermore, by making business analytics reports accessible to all departments within your organization, you will help employees get a clearer idea of what the company’s goals are. This is also an excellent way to let the employees know that every single contribution leads to the team’s success and therefore the company’s success.

Business Analytics Project Plan

Business Analytics do not differ from any other methods implemented by an organization – in order to be able to reap all the benefits, you will have to work out a plan with your analytics vendor. This plan should be built with respect to your needs, questions you want to get answers to, and any other details related to this project.

This plan should also include specific metrics that should be the focus of business analytics. This decreases the time needed for extracting information from a big chunk of data, and it will make it much easier to go through reports. Another key aspect of this plan is successfully meeting deadlines. When are the reports going to be available? Is this only a one-time business analysis? If not, how often should you read the data to get the relevant information?

As business analytics offer results in many forms, it is very important to determine the appropriate ways in which the data will be presented. This is important because it is much easier to identify clear trends when one is using visual data, as opposed to one delivered through text and numbers. Faster insight results in faster decision making, which in the end leads to an increase in a company’s agility.

Needless to say, if you have a detailed BA plan, chances are that you won’t encounter any problems and that the reports will provide valuable information.

Taking the Minimal Risk

In the past, risk management was the priority of financial organizations, but now risk management has become a very important part of all kinds of businesses. Every market penetration, no matter how small, is regarded as an investment. BA is a great way to identify, manage and analyze operational and financial risks whenever the company plans to take a step towards the unknown. And it is not surprising that there are now specialized companies that offer a variety of business analytics solutions.

By using the right BA statistical tools, money hemorrhaging can be foreseen a long time before it happens. Furthermore, with the right BA tools you can focus more on your customers to make sure your products and services are offering something unique. Implementation of BA can help you not only to identify and analyze customer groups, but also to develop a customer profile.

When it comes to risk prevention, BA can be used to build various models of possible outcomes, depending on the current factors influencing the market and the components that are in place within your organization.

These four ways of business analytics implementation will render your data valuable and make it a powerful business partner that you can consult whenever there is a big decision in front of you. But it will also help you transform your organization as a whole and bring it to another level.

It might be that the data wasn’t given the attention it deserves in the past, but the new trends in business management and marketing industry are definitely putting it as one of the key factors that will shape the business world in the years to come. If you would like to expand your knowledge on how important data management is, feel free to do more online research, there are plenty of available articles that cover this topic.

Author Bio:

Sam Makad is a business consultant. He helps small & medium enterprises to grow their businesses and Overall ROI.