As small and medium-sized businesses thrive, the ever-increasing need to leverage data is becoming a necessary asset to remain competitive. Data analytics and business intelligence is currently being used in all spheres of business; From retail and food-service to logistics and healthcare, from the small “mom and pop” shops to the Fortune 500s. This blog goes out to all the small and medium-sized business owners, for those who are ready to take the next step and invest in data analytics structures in order to stay ahead of the competition.
Definition
You may be asking, “I’ve heard the phrase ‘business intelligence,’ but what does it even mean?” I’m glad you asked, because you’ve come to the right place. The reality is that business intelligence can be a noun, you can perform it as a verb, and it can even be used as an adjective (i.e. a business-intelligence report). For the purpose of this post, I will be concentrating on business intelligence as a noun and a verb.
Business Intelligence (BI): the discipline of leveraging data analytics and visualizations to gain wisdom and drive business decisions.
Means
There are hundreds or even thousands of different platforms that can enable the use of BI. There are companies whose sole purpose is to create solutions that enable businesses to better understand their customers, products, and varying costs. Ideally these solutions operate as either databases (which store the data) or visualization tools. Some platforms are even one-stop-shop solutions that perform both.
Perhaps you want to start storing your data so that you can gain insights later. A database platform would be the perfect solution to meet your needs. Maybe you have already started collecting your data and you want to gain wisdom to catalyze your operational success. A data visualization tool could provide you with the perfect solution to drive that success. Wherever your business is within the varying stages of data analytic maturity, AP Datum is here to help.
Wisdom
The end goal of BI is to ultimately gain wisdom thereby enabling your success. The ways you can get there are many. The copious insights you can gain by instituting this discipline have varying measurements of depth and breadth. BI is like the scouting report of the other team; it allows you to play your best defense and offense against the opposing team. The question you need to ask yourself is, “Where do I think I can gain a competitive advantage through BI?” As you ponder this question, AP Datum can be there to walk alongside you.
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