How to measure the pertinent results with BI
What does a manager want to know when reading the submitted company report? In most cases, the main question will be “Is everything okay?” This question, however, cannot always be answered.
Many companies do not have the tools required to measure the pertinent results. This makes it impossible to know if a company is thriving or not. A Forrester survey done in 2015, reveals that 34% of CRM professionals have a hard time measuring their results.
Following our top 5 obstacles that can be solved using business intelligence (BI), this article will show you how BI can help you get a scope of your performances:
Traditional tools that are inadequate
So then are we okay or not? The conventional reporting tools such as Excel, and SSRS reports are not ideal solutions when wanting to measure pertinent results.
2 limiting factors of conventional tools:
1- Long delays ➤ Generating a report often requires considerable waiting times before validated results can be accessed. Implementation is costly in terms of time and resources.
2- Inability to process large amounts of data ➤ many companies work with large volumes of data. And these often far exceed the capabilities of Excel.
Putting results into perspective
Suppose, you want to know if a cash register generated a lot of revenue this week. To find this information, you will need to have a comparative value. A lot of income compared to what? Last week? Last year on this date? At another branch checkout counter? It is by comparing with yourself that you know where you stand.
The conventional tools, however, do not make these comparisons simple. Want to compare your CRM results to budget figures? Oops, the data is in another system! You wish to evaluate your position with regards to the market? The data is not in CRM, making it difficult to define. And if you wanted to know the trend of the results, you cannot do so using Excel, since it is unable to count the millions of historical data…
Use BI to measure your results
Modern business intelligence tools will enable you to more easily evaluate whether or not you are doing well. You will have access to more powerful tools able to handle large amounts of data. These tools also make it easier for you to analyze your situation by using other data as comparative values.
With BI you can:
1- Access ➤ You will have quick access to data in a single glance, all in compliance to the standards and definitions established by your company.
2- Visualize ➤An impressive choice of chart types is available for you to visualize data, allowing you to understand the situation at a glance.
3- Compare ➤ No more data decentralization problems: you can connect to external data sources, and therefore access consolidated information with a single login.
Analyze the results of your marketing campaigns
So, in practical terms, what does it look like for a company? Using the marketing team, as an example, BI makes it easy to check the performance of different campaigns by calculating the cost evolution per new prospect.
The Power BI application for example, would allow you to consult a chart such as this one:
Assess the pertinent sales results
How to evaluate the performance of the sales team? You can calculate the evolution of market shares based on external data. It is often possible to find data in your specific target market. Your business intelligence tools can connect to these external sources, enabling you to track the performance of your sales.
Here is a preview of what the measurement of market shares could look like using the Power BI application:
External data sources
There are many external data sources. Data from industry associations, different universities or market research firms can be very useful.
Here are some examples:
Resolve various CRM obstacles using BI
Many other CRM challenges can be solved using business intelligence. It helps to optimize the customer experience, make decisions based on facts, or get a single version of the truth in your reports. BI can also improve the acceptance of the CRM software within your team. This will be demonstrated in our next article!
Until then, you can continue learning about business intelligence. A free caption of our webinar on overcoming 5 major CRM obstacles with business intelligence is now available online. Click here to watch the webinar! For more information, do not hesitate to contact one of our experts, who can offer you personalized advice.
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