In your quest to grow from a good to a great company, and ultimately an ‘intelligent’ company, there are some specific steps you can take to ensure BI success. Keep in mind that a successful increase of your Business Intelligence Quotient will not only measure ROI, but all around company-wide performance as well. Viewing a complete 360 degree picture will allow you to see your company as a whole, with each individual performing in various roles, driven by a specified set of business processes. The accuracy of your BIQ extends beyond the numbers. Value is ultimately created when the benefits of your solution are realized by each person and throughout every process, making a more efficient, streamlined organization overall.

1. Business Intelligence is everyone’s business.

Start with educating your staff on how better BI will improve decision-making and efficiencies across the board. Knowing why it’s important and what it will improve will increase the likelihood of buy-in and a higher BIQ at the end of the day.

2. Success depends on how well you can make your data work for you.

Having access to data and numbers will not be useful unless you have a way to refine it into useable information and analytics. From paper to prediction, there are many different silos of data within your company. The right BI solution can help you better organize this information in order to make it work for you. This results in a faster time-to-insight which is the time it takes to analyze your data and come to a conclusion about what your next steps should be.

3. Business Intelligence is more than an internal solution.

While many focus on BI as a way to improve information and analytics, it can and should also be utilized to enhance your customer service capabilities. BI can provide your customer/end-user with self service functionality through interactive and responsive controls helping your organization become more ‘customer-centric’.

4. BI provides access to information when you need it.

The authenticity of information enables the efficient use of data to improve your BIQ. Further, the ability to inter-operate with other software solutions will provide for a well-rounded 360- degree view of your organization. The greatest value of your BI solution is the consistency, currency, and protection of all of your data, maintained in a secure, reliable and always available format.

5. Business Intelligence is not just a solution, but also a strategy.

Your BI should always be evolving in order to ensure that the changing needs of your organization and your customer are being met. It therefore extends beyond just an intelligence solution, but becomes a strategic decision-making tool. It is crucial that you implement a BI solution that not only meets the current needs of your company, but will also do so in the future. This will insure the best value that continues to provide the appropriate levels of efficiency going forward.

Ultimately Business Intelligence should be used not only to analyze your data, but to improve your decision making process, thus providing a strategic value to both your organization as well as your customer. The future of BI will be driven by customer-centric imperatives that provide right-time information, enhanced self service, adaptability, security and compliance. Practicing the principles outlined in this article will help you continue to raise your Business Intelligence Quotient, improving your decision-making and customer service capabilities across the board.

Adapted from: Raising your ‘BIQ’ (Business Intelligence Quotient): 5 Things Your Company can do NOW.