“Learn how you can unlock the power of your data and scale your sales and marketing strategies to increase revenue.”
Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the process of gathering, storing, and analyzing a company’s data to produce human-readable insights to boost productivity, meet demands, and increase revenue.
In a broader view, BI includes mining of data, process analysis, performance benchmarking, and visualization of data (using descriptive analytics). The descriptive analytics using tools like Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, or your custom ways of doing BI with Python or R language – results in pie charts, graphs, bar charts, and relevant or simpler graphical displays. This is to let decision-makers understand their data in a visual format and make better decisions that positively change the organization. BI tools also make it easier for your sales team to understand their customer base and provide what they are looking for.
However, best business practices to make better business decisions don’t merely involve focusing merely on analytics and trends for predictions. Rather, it’s equally crucial to take happenings of current and past events into account for data analysis to inform business decisions.
For these reasons, business intelligence is the “Goto” field. And using business intelligence to make organizational improvements with business intelligence tools is the way to do the same with speed and accuracy. It is to help businesses always stay ahead of the curve.
With that in consideration, it should be noted that the world BI market is set to grow by a CAGR of 8.7% until 2028. So, if you’re a business owner, data freak, or an individual who loves to keep an eye on BI arena, this blog is for you.
Let’s get to know what BI really is, and how you can use business intelligence for sales and marketing teams to generate revenue.
What is Business Intelligence?
Business Intelligence represents a team of business analysts that use data analysis tools to draw meaning from the data mined from multiple data sources. The data sources can be of an organization, or other freely available data sources like World Bank Open Data, Google Public Data Explorer, WHO (World Health Organization) — Open data repository, or Kaggle and more.
With a variety of tools and software like Power BI, companies can enable their business analysts (BAs) to parse data, produce reports, and seamlessly share information to help managers make decision-making more powerful and better. MS1
Business Intelligence Tools Defined
A Business Intelligence tool is software offered by software companies. There are many BI solutions providers like Microsoft, Tableau (now Salesforce), SAP, IBM, Pentaho, Domo, and Looker, and more.
Business intelligence software like Microsoft Power BI benefits companies across different industries by making better use of their data collected/stored in spreadsheets, reporting/query software, and other data mining tools.
BI’s self-service analytics allows non-technical users to access and explore data, create custom reports and visualizations, identify trends and patterns. Business intelligence tools enable data-driven decisions, improve performance, reduce costs, and provide a competitive advantage for current and future needs.
What are the benefits of Business Intelligence for Sales and Marketing Team?
Companies across the world adopt BI for functions like hiring, compliance, production, sales, and marketing, as it helps them build core business value.
BI offers faster, more accurate reporting and analysis, improved data quality, better employee satisfaction, and increased revenues at reduced costs.
Not only that, but a strong BI team with powerful BI tools also helps a business avoid “garbage in and garbage out” problems caused by inaccurate or insufficient data analysis.
With BI, an organization can make better business decisions based on real-time insights. So, if you are considering BI and business intelligence tools to empower your sales team, here are some ways your team can benefit:
1. Improvements to Retain Customers – Acquiring new customers is expensive. A BI solution can help sales teams understand what motivates existing customers, track demand trends, and identify cross-selling opportunities. This can tailor sales campaigns, resulting in increased sales and reduced customer acquisition costs.
2. Reduction in Reporting Times – Sales and marketing teams spend a lot of time manually creating, analyzing, and sorting through data to gain insights, understand performance, and produce sales reports. Business-centric and easily adaptable marketing BI tools like Power BI and alike can automate this process, generating pipeline reports and sales trends quickly, freeing up time for sales teams to focus on strategy, and other important tasks[MS2] [MS3] [MS4] .
3. Seamless Sales Analytics Information Sharing – A business-centric BI tool enables the creation of dashboards and interactive reports that provide insights into sales metrics, which can be shared across departments. And the marketing teams can track campaign success, operations teams can forecast product demand, and management can make more accurate decisions based on sales activity.
4. Forecast More Accurate Sales and Quotas – Enterprises with accurate forecasting have a competitive edge, and a BI solution consolidates data, simplifies it, and provides correct, up-to-date information. Access to historical sales data in one place makes it easier to project future revenue and sales, which helps set realistic quotas and lets your sales teams know how to improve business sales. This is challenging when sales success depends on variables such as month or customer segments.
5. Easily track important metrics – Power BI and other BI solutions like Microsoft Excel, Google Docs (spreadsheets), or online analytical processing (OLAP) enables the tracking of key metrics like win rates, revenue, discounts, and year-to-date (YTD) revenue maps through interactive and easy-to-set-up dashboards. These dashboards are automatically refreshed with the latest data, providing access to the most up-to-date information.
Use Cases or Examples of Business Intelligence: See How World’s Biggest Companies Are Bringing Data to Life
Miami HEAT
The Miami HEAT organization utilized Dynamics 365 (which consists of Power BI and other BI tools) to streamline their sales and operations processes, resulting in a 30% increase in season ticket sales and approximately $1 million in cost savings. By leveraging real-time data analytics and automating manual processes, the organization was able to better understand customer preferences and optimize their sales campaigns, while also improving their overall operational efficiency.
Lowe’s Corp
Lowe’s Corp, the second-largest home improvement retail chain in the US, was an early adopter of BI tools. The company has used these tools to improve its supply chain, detect potential fraud in products, and address issues with collective delivery charges from its stores.
Komatsu
Komatsu Australia, a mining equipment manufacturer, migrated its on-premises SQL Server database to Azure SQL Database Managed Instance to improve scalability, cost, and performance. The company experienced a 49 percent cost reduction and 25 to 30 percent performance gains by making this switch. This move allowed Komatsu Australia to manage its database more efficiently and better serve its customers.
Coca-Cola Bottling Company
Coca-Cola Bottling streamlined its manual reporting process with a BI system and saved 260 hours (about 1 and a half weeks) per year. The automated system provides access to real-time sales and operations data, allowing the team to analyze metrics like delivery operations, budget, and profitability with just a few clicks.
BI FAQs for You!
What Is Power BI?
Power BI is a Microsoft product for business analytics that provides a scalable platform for individuals and organizations to connect, model, and visualize data.
What Is IBM’s BI Product?
IBM offers Cognos Analytics as their primary BI product, boasting an AI-powered solution that includes all necessary components for business intelligence.
What is the main benefit of business intelligence?
The main benefit of business intelligence is that it allows organizations to make more informed and data-driven decisions by consolidating data from various sources and presenting it in an easily understandable format.
What are sales operations?
Sales operations involve managing the processes, systems, and tools that support the sales team, including forecasting, pipeline management, and performance analytics.
- What are the two ways that sales revenues increase?
The two ways that sales revenues increase is by acquiring new customers and by increasing sales to existing customers through cross-selling and upselling.
What do sales operations do?
Sales operations manages the day-to-day activities of the sales team and provides support to help them sell more effectively.
What is the importance of intelligence in sales strategy?
Intelligence in sales strategy is important because it helps organizations to understand their customers’ needs and preferences, as well as market trends and competitive landscape. This information can then be used to develop effective sales strategies tailored to individual customers’ needs.
Why are sales operations important?
Sales operations are important because they help to ensure that the sales team is working efficiently and effectively, by providing them with the tools and support they need to succeed.
How does business intelligence improve customer satisfaction?
Business intelligence can improve customer satisfaction by providing organizations with insights into customer preferences and behavior, allowing them to tailor their products and services to better meet the needs of their customers.
How to run a successful sales operations team?
To run a successful sales operations team, it is important to set up clear processes and guidelines, provide training and support to team members, and regularly review and analyze performance data to identify areas for improvement.
What are the benefits of revenue intelligence?
The benefits of revenue intelligence include increased sales, improved customer satisfaction, better forecasting accuracy, and improved operational efficiency.
What is intelligent revenue growth?
Intelligent revenue growth refers to the process of using data and analytics to identify and pursue opportunities for revenue growth in a strategic and targeted way.
How can business intelligence benefit your sales and marketing?
Business intelligence can benefit sales and marketing by providing insights into customer behavior, market trends, and competitor activity, allowing organizations to develop effective marketing campaigns and sales strategies that are tailored to the needs of individual customers.
The embedded facility of business intelligence for marketing in BI tools also enables your teams to provide customers with better customer experiences, leading them to close more deals.
Get in touch with your Power BI Partner
If you want to unlock the potential of your data with a BI tool like Microsoft Power, connect with an expert team at Dynamics Square – your go-to Power BI implementation Partner, and get a custom BI solution – either for cloud or on-premises use. Let’s start your Power BI journey with full throttle.
And if you’re looking for more resources about Power BI, check the following resources to learn more about the power of Power BI:
