The application of sales contests is one of the most rewarding for the sales manager and his team and this is because these contests produce positive results in achieving sales targets. The sales team is the driving force for the business revenues since it engages in developing new product sales opportunities and influencing the consumers and turning them into buyers. A sales job is certainly one of the most challenging. This is because a company is under pressure from the company owner to meet to particular sales targets.
On the other hand, the sales manager and sales executives have to work behind the clock to ensure that every tactic is a “selling” strategy. A sales contest will make your team to;
• Gain recognition for exceptional performance
• Build team spirit
• Set the right performance standards
• Make the sales job more fun and interesting
• Feel like winners
• Provide a baseline for sales performance improvement and training
The contests have been viewed as motivational factors, which make the sales team more vibrant thus being able to go past their limits.
However, managing sales contests is never easy as it requires constant interaction, assessment, monitoring, and morale creation for the team to be able to achieve projected sales goals. With the managers in the office and the salesmen and sales ladies on the field or on the internet doing the job, for the sales manager, it is a difficult moment to put up the team to its optimal performance.
Close interaction, appreciation, commenting, pin pointing essential things and also checking on the performance of the sales team leaders is the most challenging thing. A sales manager can easily lose control of his sales contest team if there is no that interaction. In order to be able to organize your sales contests smoothly and successfully, you can use an innovatively and intuitively designed software system.
The system helps you build a high impact within the shortest time possible. With this system, you can rally behind your sales team to ensure that it realizes more sales opportunities; it’s able to launch new products, and close more sales deals.
The sales figures can exponentially grow with the use of the software system. The software allows for application of an incentive behavior where the sales manager makes use of different attributes of the program to create the best rewarding program.
For instance, leads, opportunities, events, tasks and chatter features are applied. This means that you can develop different reward schemes for the contest team such as the sales person who has acquired the most business leads, a sales person who has obtained a breakthrough in creating new opportunities for products and services.
Sales contests rewards can also be organized through particular events or certain completed tasks. Through the analysis of the performance of the sales persons, a chatter reward is one of the easiest, effective, and most interactive ways to keep your team in high spirit. You can reward almost immediately when a certain peculiar achievement or success is achieved by a sales employee.
You can decide to reward that sales person through the chatter with very encouraging message and approximate reward to keep him or her motivated and determined. The system also streamlines the prizing and awarding and the sales manager can add prices that he or she feels can best motivate the team. Through the system, the eligible entries are automatically entered into the contests.
The administrators of the contest including the sales manager are able to view the leaderboard and updates of the team members that have gained entry into the contests. The interaction with the sales team through the system enables each member to view their performance. They are able to set targets based on their achievements. The sales manager has one-on-one contact through emails and chat platforms to try and motivate each individual member.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Why Insurance Companies Should Use Social Media Strategy to Engage the Consumer
Social media is now becoming part and parcel of the mainstream business aspects. Like other businesses, insurance companies need a social media strategy to help reach and engage the consumer. Insurance company is highly regulation field and despite these charges, it also needs to understand that its survival lies on how well it engages the consumer. Social strategy cannot be ignored by businesses including insurance companies no matter how it is perceived and therefore, there is need for social media management.
In the insurance industry, there are been a notion that social media is crippling insurance business by exposing too much of the negatives than the positives. Whereas this may be true, it is certain that social media has far much better things to offer than bad in terms of marketing and branding insurance products, and services.
There is need for insurance firms to apply social media management strategies to enhance their presence in social media networks and influence their existing, prospective and potential clients. Insurance companies can benefit in various ways if they create their social presence on the internet.
In the insurance industry, there are been a notion that social media is crippling insurance business by exposing too much of the negatives than the positives. Whereas this may be true, it is certain that social media has far much better things to offer than bad in terms of marketing and branding insurance products, and services.
There is need for insurance firms to apply social media management strategies to enhance their presence in social media networks and influence their existing, prospective and potential clients. Insurance companies can benefit in various ways if they create their social presence on the internet.
Thursday, December 05, 2013
Here are the Best Ways to Manage Personal Finance!
Faced with many financial needs and with limited streams of income, it is clear-marked that people need to manage their cash effectively to avoid crisis. Even with numerous and huge cash inflows, these monetary reservoirs can be drained off if poor and untimely spending behavior is adopted in personal finance. The key to succeeding in meeting your financial needs is to first make an appropriate use of the available cash. Poor financial use can plunge one into a burden of indebtedness and eventually be rendered bankrupt.
To manage the cash inflows, it is important to develop a personal financial plan streamlining how one intends to spend the available cash. With great ambitions, people are always working hard to meet these aspirations. However, these ambitions can only be achieved when the cash earned is utilized in the most appropriate manner. Setting your financial goals and identifying ways to achieve them is certainly one of the aspects that a person should emphasize on.
Once you have identified your financial goals and objectives, it's imperative to prioritize them. There are urgent and not urgent needs. At the same time there are important and non important financial needs. For instance, buying your dream limousine may not be urgent but providing for your daily meals is important and urgent since one cannot go without food. There are basic and secondary needs all of which require cash to meet them.
One of the most important things in managing personal finance to do is examine your streams of income and calculate how much you earn per specific period of time for example, on monthly basis. The next step is to establish your regular expenses such as food cost, insurance premiums, household bills including electricity and telephone bills. It must be agreed that regular bills cover most of the expenses. This is because; although they may appear little in the short run, since they recur every day or month, in the long run they consume a large part of your income.
Identifying the disposal income is also of paramount importance since you are able to know how much is left for saving after covering most of the recurring expenses. You should also save with a purpose and this means that you have to establish how you intend to spend the money you save. This calls for financial planning, and setting up a budget is one healthy way of utilizing your hard-earned finances.
A budget can be used as tool for determining how much cash will be allocated for particular expense and when this will be accomplished. The financial needs are categorized as short term (immediate), medium term and long term. With this classification, all your financial needs should then be placed in the right category. It must be emphasized that setting a target to accomplish in your financial obligations places one in a better position to utilize the saved cash appropriately.
Time frames are very important in managing cash. This substantiates the reason why time is said to be money. You should also match your spending with income earned. Do not overspend even if the income increases. There are certain aspects that form a stumbling block to achieving financial goals and these include aimless and multiple borrowing, unnecessary expenses that are not budgeted for as well as other expenses that can be minimized.
Borrowing has to be done when it is pressing to do so otherwise, repaying a loan can be daunting especially when it is not clear how such a loan will be paid back. The interest charged on loans can destabilize ones ambitions to achieve financial goals. Unnecessary expenses occur when impulse buying of products or assets is done. Budgeting should help in eliminating impulse buying or untimely expenses. This is achieved by sticking on the budget features.
Other expenses that can be reduced such as insurance premiums, regular household bills, and leisure and recreation costs should be scaled down significantly. This helps in cutting down on the expenses and the end result is an increased disposable income and hence savings. Moreover, a saving culture should be developed where you save as you earn. The saving should be targeted and proportionate to the earnings. When there is a significant increase in cash inflows this is the time to save more and manage your personal finance well.
To manage the cash inflows, it is important to develop a personal financial plan streamlining how one intends to spend the available cash. With great ambitions, people are always working hard to meet these aspirations. However, these ambitions can only be achieved when the cash earned is utilized in the most appropriate manner. Setting your financial goals and identifying ways to achieve them is certainly one of the aspects that a person should emphasize on.
Once you have identified your financial goals and objectives, it's imperative to prioritize them. There are urgent and not urgent needs. At the same time there are important and non important financial needs. For instance, buying your dream limousine may not be urgent but providing for your daily meals is important and urgent since one cannot go without food. There are basic and secondary needs all of which require cash to meet them.
One of the most important things in managing personal finance to do is examine your streams of income and calculate how much you earn per specific period of time for example, on monthly basis. The next step is to establish your regular expenses such as food cost, insurance premiums, household bills including electricity and telephone bills. It must be agreed that regular bills cover most of the expenses. This is because; although they may appear little in the short run, since they recur every day or month, in the long run they consume a large part of your income.
Identifying the disposal income is also of paramount importance since you are able to know how much is left for saving after covering most of the recurring expenses. You should also save with a purpose and this means that you have to establish how you intend to spend the money you save. This calls for financial planning, and setting up a budget is one healthy way of utilizing your hard-earned finances.
A budget can be used as tool for determining how much cash will be allocated for particular expense and when this will be accomplished. The financial needs are categorized as short term (immediate), medium term and long term. With this classification, all your financial needs should then be placed in the right category. It must be emphasized that setting a target to accomplish in your financial obligations places one in a better position to utilize the saved cash appropriately.
Time frames are very important in managing cash. This substantiates the reason why time is said to be money. You should also match your spending with income earned. Do not overspend even if the income increases. There are certain aspects that form a stumbling block to achieving financial goals and these include aimless and multiple borrowing, unnecessary expenses that are not budgeted for as well as other expenses that can be minimized.
Borrowing has to be done when it is pressing to do so otherwise, repaying a loan can be daunting especially when it is not clear how such a loan will be paid back. The interest charged on loans can destabilize ones ambitions to achieve financial goals. Unnecessary expenses occur when impulse buying of products or assets is done. Budgeting should help in eliminating impulse buying or untimely expenses. This is achieved by sticking on the budget features.
Other expenses that can be reduced such as insurance premiums, regular household bills, and leisure and recreation costs should be scaled down significantly. This helps in cutting down on the expenses and the end result is an increased disposable income and hence savings. Moreover, a saving culture should be developed where you save as you earn. The saving should be targeted and proportionate to the earnings. When there is a significant increase in cash inflows this is the time to save more and manage your personal finance well.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
The Benefits of Satellite Inmarsat Services in Smart Grid Applications
Satellite inmarsat services help in connecting smart grid technologies applications as well as Satellite SCADA supported networks that provide ever-present IP connectivity in utility services in an entire territory. One of the renowned global mobile commercial satellite communication network set up by Inmarsat is the award-winning Inmarsat-4 (1-4) satellites. Offering Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), Inmarsat-4 concurrently delivers both voice and broadband data and has a gained a strong base in sectors such as oil and gas, international aid agencies, and broadcast media.
Moreover, Inmarsat introduced BGAN M2M and this is a two-way IP services for data transmission only. The BGAN M2M is ideal for low, high frequency transmissions, which are required in normal automated data reporting right from Smart Grid and Satellite SCADA application. Some of the benefits of satellite Inmarsat services are;
Smart Grids Metering
The advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) of the Smart Grids helps consumer manage their energy consumption by providing utilities based on visible demand. The meters are connected to aggregation points, which collect data from consumers in a given geographical area and transmit back to the data center of the utility in a fixed link or cellular network.
However, since cellular networks experience restricted bandwidth and are faced with congestion, coupled with their vulnerability to natural disasters, then it means that bgan inmarsat offers a better option. It is accessible in areas where cellular and fixed line coverage is not available. Therefore the BGAN is a cost effective and high quality option for backhaul usage data experienced in advanced concentrators or aggregation points and this allows utilities to reach entire networks and offer energy solutions to the entire customer base.
Automated distribution
The deployment of BGAN or BGAN M2M network connectivity infrastructure alongside power distribution lines offers a primary or secondary link to the utility’s data center. This provides monitoring and control of switches, reclosers and other devices on the distribution network, recording any voltage fluctuations, outrages and also consumer energy demand. This kind of data helps in making real-time decisions on smart grid energy based on ready hand information.
Connectivity in substations
Inmarsat offers Satellite SCADA or equivalent applications at electricity substations and these could be standalone or combined with VSAT. Such connections help reach out to the locations where it is difficult or costly to apply fixed-line and cellular communication. BGAN connectivity guarantees data streaming all the time since it can work in both low-volume/high-frequency data traffic situations or in high-volume/low frequency data streaming situations. And in addition, there is a backup communication in every substation.
Disaster recovery application
In times of disasters, the Satellite Inmarsat communication terminals are deployed quickly to offer alternative communications and this helps in diagnosing problem issues pretty fast and thus offer solutions immediately. This reliability aspect of the Inmarsat connectivity substantiates the reason why it has widely been used by organizations such as the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide immediate and dependable communication for coordinating disaster relief.
Smart Grid Communications
As energy utilities seek for electricity grids that offer greater scalability and control over energy consumption; it is certain Smart Grid communication will play a big role in managing energy costs. The Smart Grid is dynamic and interactive infrastructure that offers real-time solutions in energy consumption and cost control. The Smart Grid communication helps enhance operational efficiency and extends the accessibility of network across the utility’s entire service territory.
In essence, Inmarsat BGAN and the data only BGAN M2M, which supports Satellite SCADA applications, are critical energy utility network solutions and offer real-time data, which helps in management of energy consumption as well as improves operational efficiency through workforce mobility enhancement.
Moreover, Inmarsat introduced BGAN M2M and this is a two-way IP services for data transmission only. The BGAN M2M is ideal for low, high frequency transmissions, which are required in normal automated data reporting right from Smart Grid and Satellite SCADA application. Some of the benefits of satellite Inmarsat services are;
Smart Grids Metering
The advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) of the Smart Grids helps consumer manage their energy consumption by providing utilities based on visible demand. The meters are connected to aggregation points, which collect data from consumers in a given geographical area and transmit back to the data center of the utility in a fixed link or cellular network.
However, since cellular networks experience restricted bandwidth and are faced with congestion, coupled with their vulnerability to natural disasters, then it means that bgan inmarsat offers a better option. It is accessible in areas where cellular and fixed line coverage is not available. Therefore the BGAN is a cost effective and high quality option for backhaul usage data experienced in advanced concentrators or aggregation points and this allows utilities to reach entire networks and offer energy solutions to the entire customer base.
Automated distribution
The deployment of BGAN or BGAN M2M network connectivity infrastructure alongside power distribution lines offers a primary or secondary link to the utility’s data center. This provides monitoring and control of switches, reclosers and other devices on the distribution network, recording any voltage fluctuations, outrages and also consumer energy demand. This kind of data helps in making real-time decisions on smart grid energy based on ready hand information.
Connectivity in substations
Inmarsat offers Satellite SCADA or equivalent applications at electricity substations and these could be standalone or combined with VSAT. Such connections help reach out to the locations where it is difficult or costly to apply fixed-line and cellular communication. BGAN connectivity guarantees data streaming all the time since it can work in both low-volume/high-frequency data traffic situations or in high-volume/low frequency data streaming situations. And in addition, there is a backup communication in every substation.
Disaster recovery application
In times of disasters, the Satellite Inmarsat communication terminals are deployed quickly to offer alternative communications and this helps in diagnosing problem issues pretty fast and thus offer solutions immediately. This reliability aspect of the Inmarsat connectivity substantiates the reason why it has widely been used by organizations such as the American Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide immediate and dependable communication for coordinating disaster relief.
Smart Grid Communications
As energy utilities seek for electricity grids that offer greater scalability and control over energy consumption; it is certain Smart Grid communication will play a big role in managing energy costs. The Smart Grid is dynamic and interactive infrastructure that offers real-time solutions in energy consumption and cost control. The Smart Grid communication helps enhance operational efficiency and extends the accessibility of network across the utility’s entire service territory.
In essence, Inmarsat BGAN and the data only BGAN M2M, which supports Satellite SCADA applications, are critical energy utility network solutions and offer real-time data, which helps in management of energy consumption as well as improves operational efficiency through workforce mobility enhancement.
What are the Benefits of Lean Consulting?
Businesses need to embrace the benefits of lean consulting in order to turn around their performance towards increased productivity while at the same time maintaining high level of customer relations. Lean is a process that helps create value for the benefit of the end user customer and it is looped around elimination of waste and utilization of resources in an optimal manner.
The cornerstone to Lean is continuous improvement and this helps in improving people and processes so that they can achieve better results with either the same resources or even less. In essence, lean applies in virtually any process or person’s activities and therefore, has a wide application in the improvement of people and processes.
The lean process thrives in all sectors and disciplines ranging from social care to the medical and engineering fields. In people lean consulting helps in optimizing the workers talents, willpower, knowhow, efforts, time and efforts and translate them into results while adding value by minimizing wastes and improving outputs.
This process eliminates aspects, which increase unnecessary costs, wastes of space, underutilized time and knowledge as well as the non-optimized resource applications. Lean process helps leaders to have the time to be able to lead others. It embraces leading by example. It helps businesses organize their space at the workplace by eliminating the underutilized space.
Space utilization is one of the aspects, which bring a lot of expenses to businesses, which could otherwise be eliminated. For instance, the arrangement of office and production areas could help improve the time workers take to move from one location to another. It also helps streamline the workflow in these critical production areas.
In addition, the lean consulting helps develop a team of workers that fosters resilience, engagement, morale, enthusiasm, flexibility, accountability and optimal use of resources with reduced wastages. There are different types of lean consulting and these include productivity, time, production cost, inventory, floor space, quality, transportation, and human skills.
Different lean practices are carried out to address the commonly identified wastes in business processes. Overproduction is one of the processes, which can cost businesses a lot of money and the lean consultancy helps addresses aspects of overproduction in order to reduce wastes. Organization of time is also a key element of the lean process as it minimizes the time people spend waiting and staying idle.
The movement of people and materials in a plant or business premises should be re-arranged and restructured to ensure that it adds value to the product and service. The inventory control needs to be managed so that there is no excess supply of inventory in business, which could remain underutilized or unsold in the warehouses.
Peoples need to translate their efforts, knowledge, talents and time into results and therefore, they need to be transformed to use the best of their unique skills and abilities. Quality control needs to be enhanced so that there are reduced defects, which could lead to reduced value of products and services.
In essence, lean thinking, though has its origin on the automotive industry; it has successfully been transferred to virtually all disciplines and produce great improvements in elimination of various types of wastes, reduction of production time and minimization of inventory. Last but least, lean consulting also minimizes storage space and enhances efficient use of personnel resources.
The cornerstone to Lean is continuous improvement and this helps in improving people and processes so that they can achieve better results with either the same resources or even less. In essence, lean applies in virtually any process or person’s activities and therefore, has a wide application in the improvement of people and processes.
The lean process thrives in all sectors and disciplines ranging from social care to the medical and engineering fields. In people lean consulting helps in optimizing the workers talents, willpower, knowhow, efforts, time and efforts and translate them into results while adding value by minimizing wastes and improving outputs.
This process eliminates aspects, which increase unnecessary costs, wastes of space, underutilized time and knowledge as well as the non-optimized resource applications. Lean process helps leaders to have the time to be able to lead others. It embraces leading by example. It helps businesses organize their space at the workplace by eliminating the underutilized space.
Space utilization is one of the aspects, which bring a lot of expenses to businesses, which could otherwise be eliminated. For instance, the arrangement of office and production areas could help improve the time workers take to move from one location to another. It also helps streamline the workflow in these critical production areas.
In addition, the lean consulting helps develop a team of workers that fosters resilience, engagement, morale, enthusiasm, flexibility, accountability and optimal use of resources with reduced wastages. There are different types of lean consulting and these include productivity, time, production cost, inventory, floor space, quality, transportation, and human skills.
Different lean practices are carried out to address the commonly identified wastes in business processes. Overproduction is one of the processes, which can cost businesses a lot of money and the lean consultancy helps addresses aspects of overproduction in order to reduce wastes. Organization of time is also a key element of the lean process as it minimizes the time people spend waiting and staying idle.
The movement of people and materials in a plant or business premises should be re-arranged and restructured to ensure that it adds value to the product and service. The inventory control needs to be managed so that there is no excess supply of inventory in business, which could remain underutilized or unsold in the warehouses.
Peoples need to translate their efforts, knowledge, talents and time into results and therefore, they need to be transformed to use the best of their unique skills and abilities. Quality control needs to be enhanced so that there are reduced defects, which could lead to reduced value of products and services.
In essence, lean thinking, though has its origin on the automotive industry; it has successfully been transferred to virtually all disciplines and produce great improvements in elimination of various types of wastes, reduction of production time and minimization of inventory. Last but least, lean consulting also minimizes storage space and enhances efficient use of personnel resources.
What are the Top Applications of Business Intelligence (BI) Systems in SMEs
Businesses create a lot data and for them to use the data meaningfully, they need to use business intelligence applications software to analyse the raw data and translate it into a reliable information. In business processes, companies continuously create data, which may be stored in files, spreadsheets or other forms of databases. This data is a valuable tool for the company in making key decisions and improving the functional role of different departments of the business.
What is business intelligence?
In definition, business intelligence-BI is an umbrella term, meaning that it is a term that carries many terminologies such as data mining, data analytics, data querying and data reporting with use of business intelligence software. It is therefore a process of software applications that is used to analyze an organization’s raw data and provide meaningful information, which can be relied upon in making key business process decisions.
Small businesses are still not embracing the potentials, which are presented by business intelligence tool in their processes because they are reluctant in investing in this essential technology. These small businesses can leverage analytics capabilities and be able to transform their decision-making processes and steer their business to growth. About 40% of the mid-market businesses are interested in predictive analytics software, according to Tachaisle survey. The following are the top applications of business intelligence.
Data visualization
One of the areas of business intelligence applications is in data visualization. This is the process of presenting data in visual graphics, which makes it easier to understand and comprehend. The main goal of data visualization is to enable different people in the business to understand the textual and number information more clearly through visual presentations. Businesses can use graphics to display their sales trends in different periods. Graphical data presentations are essential in making comparisons in business performance.
In addition, data visualization should also be able to stimulate the viewers’ engagement and entice them to capture the details in whole. For instance, a drill down of the sales data entails navigating through the details such as accessing individual product sales in a particular region, and individual sales representative performance details for a particular period of time.
Reporting
Another area of BI application is in reporting. Small businesses can make use of financial reporting and forecasting software tools to understand their financial performances. Furthermore, small businesses like other entities do not operate in “vacuums” meaning that they are in a real business environment where data sharing is essential. One of the aspects in which data is required to be shared is in the field of research. Research is very important as it helps businesses know where they are now and where they are heading.
Knowledge management
BI is also used in knowledge management by business intelligence analyst. Small businesses need to participate actively in knowledge management in order to achieve their set goals. There are knowledge management software systems, which are used in learning management as well as regulatory compliance. Take for example a case where customers walk into your store and don’t buy anything. This doesn’t mean that since there are no sales and customer information that is entered into the databases, the business should not know more about the behaviour of those customers.
Businesses can use the CI systems to carry out surveys and use that data to make inferences as to why the customers are behaving in such a manner. It is also imperative to understand that not all business intelligence tools are applicable to every other small business and therefore, a thorough research and advice should be sort to establish the best viable BI for each small enterprise business entity.
Exploitation
Last but not least, business intelligence is used to measure performance. Like the large corporate, the small businesses need to know where they are today in terms of performance by comparing their previous data, current data and future expectations. This is where business intelligence systems come in handy.
Businesses can have very huge data stored in their systems but if this data is not analyzed to produce key beneficial information, which can be used to make decisions and change business processes for the better, then it remains useless data taking up storage resources for the company. Small businesses need to realize that such data produced by business intelligence software can be used as a tool for reorganizing their business processes.
What is business intelligence?
In definition, business intelligence-BI is an umbrella term, meaning that it is a term that carries many terminologies such as data mining, data analytics, data querying and data reporting with use of business intelligence software. It is therefore a process of software applications that is used to analyze an organization’s raw data and provide meaningful information, which can be relied upon in making key business process decisions.
Small businesses are still not embracing the potentials, which are presented by business intelligence tool in their processes because they are reluctant in investing in this essential technology. These small businesses can leverage analytics capabilities and be able to transform their decision-making processes and steer their business to growth. About 40% of the mid-market businesses are interested in predictive analytics software, according to Tachaisle survey. The following are the top applications of business intelligence.
Data visualization
One of the areas of business intelligence applications is in data visualization. This is the process of presenting data in visual graphics, which makes it easier to understand and comprehend. The main goal of data visualization is to enable different people in the business to understand the textual and number information more clearly through visual presentations. Businesses can use graphics to display their sales trends in different periods. Graphical data presentations are essential in making comparisons in business performance.
In addition, data visualization should also be able to stimulate the viewers’ engagement and entice them to capture the details in whole. For instance, a drill down of the sales data entails navigating through the details such as accessing individual product sales in a particular region, and individual sales representative performance details for a particular period of time.
Reporting
Another area of BI application is in reporting. Small businesses can make use of financial reporting and forecasting software tools to understand their financial performances. Furthermore, small businesses like other entities do not operate in “vacuums” meaning that they are in a real business environment where data sharing is essential. One of the aspects in which data is required to be shared is in the field of research. Research is very important as it helps businesses know where they are now and where they are heading.
Knowledge management
BI is also used in knowledge management by business intelligence analyst. Small businesses need to participate actively in knowledge management in order to achieve their set goals. There are knowledge management software systems, which are used in learning management as well as regulatory compliance. Take for example a case where customers walk into your store and don’t buy anything. This doesn’t mean that since there are no sales and customer information that is entered into the databases, the business should not know more about the behaviour of those customers.
Businesses can use the CI systems to carry out surveys and use that data to make inferences as to why the customers are behaving in such a manner. It is also imperative to understand that not all business intelligence tools are applicable to every other small business and therefore, a thorough research and advice should be sort to establish the best viable BI for each small enterprise business entity.
Exploitation
Last but not least, business intelligence is used to measure performance. Like the large corporate, the small businesses need to know where they are today in terms of performance by comparing their previous data, current data and future expectations. This is where business intelligence systems come in handy.
Businesses can have very huge data stored in their systems but if this data is not analyzed to produce key beneficial information, which can be used to make decisions and change business processes for the better, then it remains useless data taking up storage resources for the company. Small businesses need to realize that such data produced by business intelligence software can be used as a tool for reorganizing their business processes.
Top Benefits of Using Integrated Business Intelligence (BI) Systems
Many companies have invested in business intelligence (BI) systems but most of these are typical BI installations, which entail a mix of various customized and packaged intelligence systems with applications that access data from multiple stores. What this means is that the businesses have not consolidated their BI systems into one large system application, which handles different data inputs. For instance, an accounting system offer finance-oriented data output while marketing and sales system offers information on business marketing.
Using integrated BI systems reduces the number of employees obliged to perform business processes thus saving the businesses the cost of hiring additional workforce. In addition, the turnaround time of creating business reports is reduced significantly. Businesses need reports done in time so that decision-making processes are not stalled. The stagnation of the decision-making process negatively affects business growth and continuity.
In ensuring efficiencies in business processes, the BI tools and systems create benchmarks, which allow companies to easily identify areas of weaknesses and strengths and thus make swift actions to address any shortcomings. The process of mining data from the business data archives can help in uncovering forgotten, hidden or lost data, which can help a business avert past mistakes and learn from the past strategies. With the integrated business intelligence system, these business reports are available on-demand. This makes it easier to drill down and across the details of the report as well as sort and filter the details for easy tabulation.
Moreover, there is increased interactivity within the integrated BI systems as information is easily shared across departments. For instance, data stored in the accounting enterprise resource planning-ERP system and the customer relations management-CRM system is shared through data consolidation, which in turn produces better results in decision making.
As businesses continue to register increased data creation and storage, they are also finding it necessary to use that data in making decisions more quickly. In order to ensure that the huge data created by the systems is turned into meaningful information, integrated BI systems can be used to tabulate and manipulate the data. The unstructured best-of-the breed business intelligence tools are posing a challenge to business executives as the data they get from independent systems is not coordinated into one output platform where it can easily be tabulated.
However, by adopting a standardized BI strategy with help of business intelligence analytics, this helps in integration of the business intelligence for informed decision making. Whereas BI tools are not “decision makers” by themselves, if they are applied consistently and in well structured forms, they can evolve to be tools of enhancing decision making.
In addition, dashboard reports offer current metrics of the performance of the business showing the health and wellbeing of the company in real times. Key performance indicators-KPIs are offered in graphical formats through data visualization so that the users can easily tabulate the data reports. Whether, it is data from the accounting package, payroll systems or the CRM, all this can easily be accessed with the integrated BI systems tools.
Whereas the benefits of integrated BI systems may not be exhaustively covered, it is imperative to mention that companies have benefited from integrated and standardized BI systems because they are cost effective to implement.
In conclusion, as companies embrace business intelligence, it is important that they identify a BI partner who is able to offer integrated BI systems, which can help businesses save in their intelligence investment. Whereas it is difficult to place tangible value on the benefits of BI, businesses can capture the aspect of BI cost and returns on investments (ROI) for their BI investments. This can help in determining the cost of purchasing and applying the systems in data warehousing, information delivery, and data collection, and the associated infrastructure such as software and support resources, needless to mention the expertise required in enterprise business intelligence systems applications.
Using integrated BI systems reduces the number of employees obliged to perform business processes thus saving the businesses the cost of hiring additional workforce. In addition, the turnaround time of creating business reports is reduced significantly. Businesses need reports done in time so that decision-making processes are not stalled. The stagnation of the decision-making process negatively affects business growth and continuity.
In ensuring efficiencies in business processes, the BI tools and systems create benchmarks, which allow companies to easily identify areas of weaknesses and strengths and thus make swift actions to address any shortcomings. The process of mining data from the business data archives can help in uncovering forgotten, hidden or lost data, which can help a business avert past mistakes and learn from the past strategies. With the integrated business intelligence system, these business reports are available on-demand. This makes it easier to drill down and across the details of the report as well as sort and filter the details for easy tabulation.
Moreover, there is increased interactivity within the integrated BI systems as information is easily shared across departments. For instance, data stored in the accounting enterprise resource planning-ERP system and the customer relations management-CRM system is shared through data consolidation, which in turn produces better results in decision making.
As businesses continue to register increased data creation and storage, they are also finding it necessary to use that data in making decisions more quickly. In order to ensure that the huge data created by the systems is turned into meaningful information, integrated BI systems can be used to tabulate and manipulate the data. The unstructured best-of-the breed business intelligence tools are posing a challenge to business executives as the data they get from independent systems is not coordinated into one output platform where it can easily be tabulated.
However, by adopting a standardized BI strategy with help of business intelligence analytics, this helps in integration of the business intelligence for informed decision making. Whereas BI tools are not “decision makers” by themselves, if they are applied consistently and in well structured forms, they can evolve to be tools of enhancing decision making.
In addition, dashboard reports offer current metrics of the performance of the business showing the health and wellbeing of the company in real times. Key performance indicators-KPIs are offered in graphical formats through data visualization so that the users can easily tabulate the data reports. Whether, it is data from the accounting package, payroll systems or the CRM, all this can easily be accessed with the integrated BI systems tools.
Whereas the benefits of integrated BI systems may not be exhaustively covered, it is imperative to mention that companies have benefited from integrated and standardized BI systems because they are cost effective to implement.
In conclusion, as companies embrace business intelligence, it is important that they identify a BI partner who is able to offer integrated BI systems, which can help businesses save in their intelligence investment. Whereas it is difficult to place tangible value on the benefits of BI, businesses can capture the aspect of BI cost and returns on investments (ROI) for their BI investments. This can help in determining the cost of purchasing and applying the systems in data warehousing, information delivery, and data collection, and the associated infrastructure such as software and support resources, needless to mention the expertise required in enterprise business intelligence systems applications.
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