15 Real World Business Intelligence Examples
BI is a trending and highly used domain that combines business analytics, data visualization, data mining, and multiple other data-related operations. Businesses use the best practices coming under business intelligence to mine their data and extract the information essential to make significant business decisions.
For example, a retail store generates data regularly related to purchases. They gather information about the seller, age, gender, preferred purchases, and more. Now, they turn these raw data units into a fruitful chunk of information based on which they plan their future marketing strategies. They will know who their target audience is and what they choose to buy. It will help them decide the store plans, discounts, and inventory based on the patterns they observe in their data. Almost every brand in all possible domains benefits from business intelligence in one way or other, and the growth they see in their sales graph is tremendous.
15 Great Examples of Business Intelligence
As mentioned earlier, BI proves fruitful for every industrial domain under the sun. Data is the foundation for successful businesses, and BI is the concrete that ensures its sturdiness. Name a business domain, and BI would have contributed to turning it into a success story. Let us dig deeper into the business intelligence examples to understand the better clarity and fruitfulness of the domain.
1. Decentralization
Every business division in an organization has its data requirements. For example, the inventory unit would need information only about the product availability, demand, and stocks. On the other hand, the sales department would require details about purchase patterns, buying histories, and more. Thus, BI allows the organization to decentralize the data and enable each department to explore its required data units. Moreover, you can also use an advanced form of distributed BI that provides an option to centralize the data for better security.
2. KPI creation
KPI creation is one of the significant BI examples every organization uses to enhance productivity. KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator. It tracks how close you are to your desired goals. It provides answers to the two most common questions,
- How close is the company to its measurable goals?
- How far is the company from achieving the desired targets?
KPIs are thus a fruitful example of how business intelligence can contribute to ensuring that the team and its efforts yield the best results. People doing Business Intelligence and Visualization Courses learn to create and study the KPIs and make every concerned team member aware of the progress.
3. Financial Control
BI helps companies in the financial domain in multiple ways. The competitive business environment makes it mandatory for CFOs to do strategic financial planning. They need the relevant information of not only their organization but of their competitors as well to create a fruitful plan. BI provides them with that information in the form they require. Using it, the CFOs can make crucial financial decisions related to the organization and support its growth.
4. Automated Internal Structure
Automating tasks is another significant example of BI. You can incorporate the advanced tools and techniques in your current system that store all the data sourced from multiple sources and turn it into useful information. Any department wanting to access any data unit would only have to give the command and get the required information. There is no need to investigate the raw data sets and put efforts into segregating them, as the BI tool would automate the process to save a lot of your time.
5. Inventory Control
Gone are the days when organizations had to hire a large workforce in their inventory section to update the stock list. BI has taken over and has completely automated the tasks. There will be recorded data about what is present in your inventory. As you keep selling the products, the stock automatically gets updated. You would only have to check your data files whenever you need any information related to your inventory! It is one of the best examples of business intelligence in healthcare, as companies can keep track of their medicine stock.
6. Better Market Analysis
One way to excel and stand ahead of your competitor is to analyze the market thoroughly. Learn the strategies your competitors follow and how their sales and revenue graphs respond to them. Moreover, you would also have to study what strategies you can adopt for your business and how they can help your business grow. BI helps you in proper market analysis by providing you with required data sets that give you awareness about market trends. You can study product sale reports, target audiences, and much more, which is helpful in decision-making.
7. Self Service BI
BI has evolved a lot over the past few years. Earlier, the IT teams used tools like Excel to segregate their data which took a lot of time and restricts usability. It also needed advanced features to support the changing information needs, so the self-service BI came into the picture. In this data analytic process, the users can extract the required data within a few clicks. The IT department or BI professionals would take care of the infrastructural needs, and the other users can use it effectively.
8. Massive Data Visualization
If you check the real-world examples of business intelligence, you will know that not only IT, every other business from finance, healthcare, and other domains uses data visualization techniques. It allows them to turn large volumes of data into fruitful information without wasting time. Even if you have millions of data entries, an effective tool can help you draw the information you need from it within a few seconds. Your data analytic professional can decide which tool would be apt for your organization.
9. Exploring Market Opportunities
Another example of a fruitful use of BI is to explore market opportunities. Know how you can expand your business and the areas where you can extend your services. To explore these opportunities, you need to study market trends related to customer demands and how your business can cater to them. It will include mining various data units, and it is only possible with the help of efficient BI tools and techniques.
10. Tools for Sales Intelligence
There are multiple brands providing products and services in the same category. For example, if you decide to sell cosmetics, there are a plethora of brands that already have a name in the market. So, if you want to launch or come on top of the charts, you need some sales strategy. Know who your audiences are and where you can find them. Additionally, you should plan discounts and offers for your buyers to grow your sales. BI help explore the data units using which you can make these decisions by sharing the purchase pattern or buying history with the sales teams.
11. Internal reporting for Teams
For the efficient functioning of an organization, the communication and data exchange between the teams should also be efficient. The reports generated by one team would get used by the other to carry on with their tasks. It is another example of BI as the tools under this domain help create the best and most reliable data lists, which other departments can use for making significant decisions.
12. Effective Resource Planning
Resource planning is a crucial aspect of company operations, and if you do it efficiently, the project’s success gets confirmed. Resources include manpower, raw materials, IT equipment, and everything else required for the project completion. If every team gets the resources they want in the right amount, the projects get completed on time without any additional expenses. BI helps in better resource allocation and its apt use by keeping things sorted and in a planned manner.
13. Improved Productivity
With trusted BI tools, the productivity level of the organizations improves many folds. There are various contributions of BI that support enhanced productivity, like effective resource planning, quick data segregation, and more. Things start getting automated, and every team gets the data sets they specifically need. The productivity levels directly impact the sales and revenue graphs, and you will see tremendous growth in your business.
14. Database Creation/Records
Do you have data records or reports that you and other teams in your organization use? For example, if you are in the healthcare domain, you will have patient records, medical equipment lists, and likewise. Similarly, the list of purchase patterns, product demands, sales graphs, and customer information must be there if you are in the retail business. All these records get generated by the BI tools, and these reports help your marketing team make significant decisions. You only must ensure that the tool you decide to use is reliable enough to provide the best information based on which you can make crucial business decisions.
15. Better Brand Value
Fruitful financial and marketing decisions assist in improving the hold of a brand in the market. The projects will complete on time, products and services will maintain premium quality, and you can keep your customers satisfied. All these things help earn an excellent company reputation, which improves your overall brand value and automatically fetches more business to grow your sales figure.
These examples of BI clearly explain the significance of the domain in turning businesses successful. If you also want to sail through and excel in the competitive market, use efficient BI strategies under the guidance of qualified experts.
Case Studies: Real-World Examples of Business Intelligence
Global competition, demanding consumers, and fast-changing concepts have made it mandatory for every business to take solace in BI. They can use the data they generate for their benefit and get all the required information to create a growth strategy. There are countless real-world examples of business intelligence used by renowned brands and setting a new benchmark in the market. Some of the case studies of the popular brands are mentioned below.
1. Coca-Cola: Using the Social Media Data
Social media is the most significant domain for businesses to market their products. Many of the target audiences of every business domain use one or the other platform on social media, so a significant presence can help yield the best results. Coca-Cola did the same by peeking into the actions of their social media followers, seeing what kind of content people post with their products. Moreover, they also try to infer who drinks their beverages the most and which location prefers which flavor. All this information helps create discounts and offers specific to the target audience.
That is why there are a few beverages and flavors under coca cola family, which you only find at specific locations and not everywhere else.
1. Netflix: Using the Viewer Details
Another remarkable example of BI helping a business flourish is the OTT platform Netflix. They study the actions of their visitors to improvise their viewing experience and earn satisfied customers. When viewer finds everything, they are interested in and love the overall experience, they are more likely to stick to the platform and invest in its subscriptions.
What Netflix does is, checks the search history of every viewer on the platform to figure out what they like to watch. Using this information, Netflix offers suggestions of shows or movies the viewers would like to watch. It will save viewers from boring research and offer them the content of their interest without searching for it. This feature attracts more people to the platform and keeps the existing ones glued to it, making them invest in their subscription plans.
2. Starbucks: Using Purchase History
Starbucks is a renowned brand across the globe, and it would do anything to entertain its customers. They also use their data to plan their growth strategies using the best BI tools. The invoice generated for each consumer has many details about the person. All these details get stored in the systems, and the business analysts then mine this data to fetch fruitful information.
So, if you are a loyal Starbucks customer, they will know about your preferred drinks, how often you buy their stuff, and your birthdays! All this information helps them provide the most relevant offers and discounts to the customers to attract more customers and retain their existing ones.
3. Walmart: Studying Consumer Details
Walmart is a leading retail supermarket that offers every possible household utility in one place. They place things on the racks, and people only must pick what they want. It is their product placement strategy that can increase their chances of sales. If they know what items attract the buyers, they can place the same products in the front and increase their sales. To make these decisions, Walmart studies consumer data and fetches information about purchase histories. They determine which products are bestsellers and the least preferred ones among consumers. Moreover, they will also learn about how often the same customer buys an item.
Using all these details, Walmart creates its store plan and discounts its customers. Moreover, BI also help them find details about their loyal customers, and they keep in touch with them by sending them alerts for unique discounts on special occasions. All this promotes the Walmart business significantly, and their sales graph improves.
4. Uber: Using Real-Time Data
Rental cabs have gained a lot of popularity in recent years, and Uber is a success story. They fetch real-time data on traffic, demand for cabs, and much more to decide the surgeon’s fair. For example, you must have noticed that your Uber shows a rise in the fair during peak office hours. It happens because the demand for cabs increases during this time and the company prefer taking passengers who do not mind paying more.
This way, the company made a lot of profit and set its benchmark in the rental cab market. It is an effective BI strategy that helps them fetch real-time data and segregate it into the information using which they can make significant business decisions.
These are a few examples of companies using business intelligence to excel in the market and create their benchmark. It has given them tremendous revenue growth, and you can experience the same in your business if you incorporate BI in your current model.
Why Is Business Intelligence Important?
You saw how companies across the globe use BI to power their business and improve their sales charts. You also must have figured out that it can accomplish great things for your business. We have listed a few more advantages, which you can enjoy through an effective business intelligence strategy to give you better clarity about why it is a crucial aspect of your business.
1. Better Customer Insights
BI helps fetch better and more detailed customer insights with elaborate tools and techniques. You can mine the available data and segregate it into various categories to extract the required information. For example, a simple invoice can give you information about the product and the consumer with the apt use of commands provided by the BI tools.
2. Reliable Information
You can trust the information you see in the reports generated by the BI tools. Companies across the globe make their crucial decisions based on the information they find in these reports. However, you would have to ensure using a trusted tool.
3. Real-Time Data
You read in the business intelligence use cases that companies like Uber use their real-time data to provide better customer services. It is one of the most significant advantages of BI as the business gets to know the current data insights to provide immediate help or assistance to the customers. Due to this, they can earn a better market reputation for your business.
4. Competitive Edge
When you have a hold over all your business operations, know your audience inside out, and earn satisfied customers, you get an edge over your competitors. BI helps you achieve all these goals, helping you stand out from your competition and create a hold over the market.
5. Efficient Business Plans
Efficient and productive business strategies require relevant information and insights about the business. BI strategies provide this information after digging deeper into the raw data units you sourced. Based on this information, you can see where your business lacks and make necessary changes to achieve your business goals.
All these factors clearly indicate how significant it is for a business to indulge in business intelligence techniques. However, you would have to hire the best data analysis and visualization professionals to see a promising improvement in your sales and revenue. Therefore, ensure that the person you appoint has completed KnowledgeHut Business Intelligence and Visualization Courses. It will assure you that they have the necessary skills and that the information they generate will be reliable enough to make significant business decisions.
How to Improve Your Business Intelligence to Make Your Company Prosper?
Once you finalize incorporating business intelligence into your business, the concern is improvising the strategies to get the best results. You require a proper understanding of the field, techniques, and software tools associated with BI to know what you should introduce in your business to help it prosper. To help you make the right decisions for business growth, we have shared the expert tips you can refer to.
- Get clarity on your business goals to create an effective BI strategy. Know what information you need from the data sets you generate daily, as it would help you move in the right direction.
- Figure out what information you need from the raw data you gather from various sources. Then, it will make the segregation convenient, and there is no need to deal with unwanted data entries.
- Hire the best data analysis professionals from the market to support your BI strategies. These people have hands-on experience with reliable tools and techniques that can help in efficient data visualization and mining. Hiring them for the job will save a lot of your time, and you can rest assured that the reports generated are highly reliable.
- Audit your BI strategies often to ensure they work fine and produce desired results. Audits help keep a keen eye on the BI strategies and verify if you are moving in the right direction or need changes.
These strategies are fruitful in setting up the BI strategies that would eventually help your business prosper. So plan of action considering these tips, and watch your business grow!
Pro Tips to Boost Your Business Intelligence Skills
BI is a much-in-demand skill, so almost every organization hires skilled professionals to conduct business intelligence operations. They need somebody with a thorough understanding of the domain and better familiarity with the tools and techniques that support data visualization and analytics operations.
If you want to pursue a career in this domain, it is fruitful to keep working on improving your BI skills. But, before you get hands-on experience with the projects, you can go for certification courses in this domain. The trusted course providers will train you in the trending tools and techniques that will make your journey as a BI professional smooth and fruitful. So, keep doing these certifications and open doors for better opportunities in your career.
Conclusion
Considering all the information you read, it is not surprising that BI can help businesses grow and create their mark in the competitive market. That is why every business uses data visualization and mining techniques to turn the raw data from various sources into valuable information. They then use this information to create effective marketing strategies accounting for tremendous business growth.
The increasing demand and effective results have made it a demanding domain. Hence, you can find countless career opportunities in this domain. To grab these opportunities, you should strengthen your CV by completing certification courses in data visualization and business intelligence. Prove your worth to the employer and get attractive packaging and an excellent job scale.