• The global business intelligence market is poised to reach $29.48 billion by 2022 (Reuters, 2017).
• By and large, companies with less than 100 staff benefit more from business intelligence penetration.
• Data will dramatically transform the way businesses perform in the future as companies become increasingly dependent on information to remain competitive in the marketplace.
• Executive Management, operations and sales teams chiefly drive business intelligence in companies.

The world generated 50 times more data in 2020 compared with 2011. Hidden within this voluminous information are countless bits of data waiting to be tapped, refined and reproduced for human utilization and understanding.

The collection of data is the gathering of facts, and facts are the very basis of human advancement. Harnessing data presents huge opportunities for the progress of mankind.

Business Intelligence Reporting, or BI Reporting, is the procedure of gathering and categorizing data with the help of software applications and converting them into information and knowledge to help plan strategies and guide organizations into the future. BI reporting provides recommendations and interpretations on business developments empowering decision-makers to devise the right strategies through the use of people, data, processes and policies.

In the competitive business world we live today, businesses must remain up-to-date with precise information on what customers are looking for and how they choose to relate to a seller. Information on customer preferences helps decision-makers to act swiftly by remaining tuned to changing customer choices, and also become aware of how competitors reposition themselves and respond to customer preferences. Decisions based on useful, accurate data gathered from various channels of authentic information result in better business decision-making by business managers compared with intuitive predictions and presumptions.

There are innumerable opportunities to improve the lives of people by making healthier use of data. Research on diseases, educational trends, industrial production, customer choices, patient welfare and government spending are just a few examples where business intelligence reporting can help bring in the right decision-making for private and government enterprises to advance intelligently into the future.

Best Practices for Business Intelligence Software Implementation

Companies have the potential to collect huge data from their business operations. Tracking such vast information to gain insights for better decision-making requires the application of software programs and database applications. Let’s look at some of the best practices which companies may follow for such successful software implementation.

Setting up goals and implementation policies
Companies must identify their critical business needs with clearly defined achievable goals. All the key staff working in the company must come together to create a strategy to set objectives and direct the effective implementation of a BI solution.

Preparing data with enterprise-wide involvement
Convert basic and unprocessed data into streamlined business-ready information via data duplication, assimilation and transformation to fuse different types of data into standardized formats. A seamless network of different departments from sales, marketing, and logistics to management must be established and the needs of every department must be understood. This is a basic ingredient required to ensure that the software tools produce the right results.

Flexibility and scalability
Companies must have a flexible deployment and scalable multi-cloud architecture that users can access and share data insights between on-premise and cloud deployments while maintaining high standards of governance and trust.

Data governance
Conventional BI tools require users to depend on the IT staff to set up permissions. Modern BI tools provide a governed data catalog that summarizes and documents each data source and define roles for users based on the type of information made available.

Training sessions for staff
Every user of a business intelligence reporting system must be equipped with the right skills required to handle the software. This can be achieved by regular training sessions as well as sharing of knowledge and study material. The presence of a quality champion or BI representative with technical expertise and knowledge of the software and framework will bestow confidence to all other staff using the tool. Users will become well-versed to produce convincing visuals and dashboards to emphasize important information.

Establishing a data culture in the organization
The organization should be conscious of the value of data and its significant role in meeting objectives. Management must cultivate a data culture that combines all departments to encourage a sense of togetherness and thus achieve common goals.

Being data-driven has become a prime requisite in today’s business environment. Employing BI software solutions is the right way forward for companies that seek to forge ahead by harnessing the power of data. With the right implementation strategies and best practices, companies can design data-driven solutions for their staff leading to accurate decision-making, operational efficiency, exceptional performance, higher profits and improved customer satisfaction.

iInterchange Systems  www.iinterchange.com, an exclusive container shipping and logistics software solutions provider, delivers a range of software on SaaS www.iboxsuite.com and on-premises. The dashboards in their products provide smart and intelligent data enabling users to take smart business decisions.