What Is Business Analytics And Why Is It Important?
In today’s reality, business analytics is an important tool for strategic management and decision-making in a company. Thanks to data analysis, a business can better understand its processes, anticipate market changes, and optimize resources. With the increase in data volume and the complexity of its processing, businesses are actively turning to data analytics outsourcing companies to gain access to advanced technologies and expert experience. In this article, we will analyze what business analytics is and why it plays a key role in the successful operation of companies.
Why Does a Business Need Analytics?
Business analytics is a way of displaying data that comes from different sources and is used by companies to make informed management decisions.
Of course, you can work without delving deeply into the analysis of business indicators, but with this approach, it is unlikely that you will be able to scale the company. Without reliable and up-to-date data, the business moves forward almost blindly.
Scaling should always be associated with the results of analysis and a strategic plan based on quantitative and qualitative indicators.
However, connecting analytics is necessary not only when expanding a business. It is important to routinely monitor sales dynamics, advertising results, and conversion rates. This is the only way to maintain positions in a highly competitive market.
What are the benefits of implementing business analytics? What data analytics outsourcing agency, like N-iX can bring to the table? Let’s highlight the key advantages for any business:
- Improving employee performance.
One of the main advantages of working with business analytics is the ability to influence the performance of the company’s employees.
When you have data on which employee and how he or she performs their duties (for example, how high is the percentage of refusals from a purchase), you can make plans to improve the skills of employees or reward those who have distinguished themselves.
- Improving the quality of customer service.
The percentage of refusals mentioned in the previous paragraph also directly affects the quality of customer service.
If the percentage of refusals is higher than usual and increases every month, then you need to immediately look for those areas that need urgent improvement. By working with the staff and reducing the percentage of refusals, you can achieve an improvement in the quality of customer service, as well as another important indicator – consumer loyalty to the brand.
- Forecasting expected profit.
The data obtained from the conducted business analysis can be used to forecast cash receipts. This allows you to make plans for the distribution of the marketing budget and expenses for business expansion.
For example, knowing the sales data for the summer of last year, you can forecast the approximate profit, taking into account seasonality and consumer capacity.
This information will help to allocate the required amount for advertising and purchases. The sales department can provide precise plans for the required profit. Of course, every business is much calmer knowing even approximate data than working and only guessing what figures the company can bring in a month or six months.
How to Implement Analytics In Your Business?
In order to get some data, you first need to decide from which sources you need to collect it. After that, think about which analytics tools to use, and how to monitor and analyze all of this in the end
It is much better to launch the analysis in stages. For example, if your main sales now come from the site, then it makes sense to first set up analytics on it and collect data for at least the reporting month.
After that, you can process the received data and move on to the next indicator. Usually, the company’s social networks come in second place. Each has its own statistics and rules, so it is worth identifying the most promising for the business and collecting data for further analysis.
The subsequent stages may be unique for each business area. For some, developing marketplaces, and for others, collecting information from online platforms, including Google Ads.
If you have a CRM system implemented, then this can also be a very informative source for collecting business analytics.
Once you have identified all the sources whose information analysis is important to you at the moment, you can move on to choosing analytics tools. There are a huge number of them, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
To start collecting analytics and gradually increase the volume of data study, you do not need to immediately connect complex solutions. It is better to start with simplified but reliable ones.
What Are BI Systems And Who Benefits From Them?
A BI system is a technology for converting data from various sources into dashboards and sets of reports that are clear and understandable to end users. Here are the tasks they help solve:
- Resource management. The system stores all information about the company’s projects, orders, transactions, and contracts. Using this information, you can assume what resources and in what quantities will be needed in the future. This simplifies the procurement planning process.
- Understanding customer requests. Using a BI system, you can work with information about how users interacted with the product. Such analysis helps to identify weak points and understand what needs to be improved.
- Finding patterns in sales. Marketing specialists can analyze sales data to identify seasonal fluctuations or other features. This information can be useful for planning purchases and advertising campaigns.
- Determining the causes of profit decline. In a BI system, you can study data on what affects the company’s net profit. By analyzing information on revenue, and fixed and variable costs, you can identify weak points.
Wrapping It Up
Business analytics allows companies to use data to make informed decisions, improve competitiveness, and increase profits. However, the effectiveness of analytics depends on the availability of technology and the professionalism of specialists, which makes cooperation with data analytics outsourcing company a profitable solution for many organizations. If you are looking for a reliable provider of data analytics services, we recommend N-iX with over 20 years of experience working with data in such industries as finance, manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunications, etc.