Fuel Accurate, Data-Driven Decision Making with BI Reporting

The leaders of your company are tasked with the responsibility of making key decisions and setting a strategic direction that will lead to growth and profitability.

However, they can't do that without a full and accurate picture of the organization's current position and performance. That's why business intelligence (BI) reporting needs to be a priority if you want to set your enterprise on the right path to achieving lasting success.

Why is BI reporting so important?

The accelerating growth and development of digital technologies mean businesses have access to more data than ever before. The range of information available to the average enterprise encompasses everything from customer preferences and buying patterns to real-time inventory updates and sales figures.

But all this data is of little use if you aren't following a clear workflow and using effective tools to analyze and gain relevant, actionable insights from it.

The ultimate aim of BI reporting is to collect, examine and present data in a way that enables senior leaders to draw clear conclusions and make informed decisions about the next steps the company should take.

A centralized and closely managed BI reporting function will lead to benefits including:

• Faster workflows and less time spent waiting for data to be analyzed and acted on
• More knowledge and insights to help stakeholders better understand their area of business
• Increased accuracy in customer behavior prediction
• Cost optimization

BI reporting best practices

1. Know your audience

It's crucial to understand the unique needs and priorities of the stakeholders who’ll be acting on the intelligence you provide. If you're presenting to marketing leaders, for example, they will want to see data such as website traffic, social media engagement, and lead conversion rates, while procurement heads will be more interested in purchase order cycle times and supplier quality ratings.

2. Choose your tools carefully

There's a wide range of BI reporting tools available to support this particular aspect of your business, encompassing everything from marketing analytics to dashboard software that helps you visualize and navigate your data. With so many options to choose from, make sure you choose the right one for you. Selecting software that’s compatible with your existing IT infrastructure and security measures is particularly important.

3. Organize and standardize your data

The sheer amount of data available to the average business means it's all too easy for it to swiftly spiral out of control and descend into a disorganized mess offering little value or insight. You can avoid this by following a structured workflow to keep your data well organized and securely stored in a standardized format.

4. Tell a story

BI reporting becomes much more compelling and useful to stakeholders when it's presented as a story that’s relevant to them, their area of the business, and the goals they're working towards. Rather than simply presenting a set of figures on website visitor activity, for example, use the data to create a narrative around customer behavior and how this relates to the company's digital marketing and branding efforts.

Examples of BI reporting in action

Looking at specific examples of how BI reporting can work will help you create a clearer picture of how you can apply this process in your organization and the benefits it can deliver.

Department-specific dashboards

Dashboards are a vital tool in many businesses' BI reporting, providing a visually engaging, easily accessible, and often interactive way to view and understand data. For an additional layer of depth, you can make your dashboards department-specific, to help you gain insights into how particular areas of the business are performing and where there might be scope for improvement.

Employee performance-based reporting

Employee performance is, of course, a vital component in the overall function and success of any business, and can therefore be a good foundation on which to base your BI reporting. Staff performance-related metrics such as average revenue per sales rep, for instance, can give you an insight into how efficiently certain teams and departments are working and delivering value for the business.

Predictive reports

Some software offers the opportunity to incorporate enhanced data analysis, machine learning , and predictive modeling into your BI reporting to project potential future developments for your business, based on existing data and trends. While it should only be used as an informative guide rather than a guarantee of what's to come, predictive reporting can prove particularly useful when you're coming up with sales forecasts or budgetary plans for the following year.

KPI-based scorecards

Scorecards can be used to provide a clear and easy-to-understand distillation of how efficiently your business is operating at any point in time, with a focus on key performance indicators (KPIs). Simple tools such as traffic light-style signals can provide a quick picture of how you're faring on anything from sales and marketing to people management and customer service. This can be a good way to make your BI reports accessible to the widest possible range of users, which helps to maximize their value and impact.