Companies are Capitalizing on Cloud Business Intelligence to Find a Competitive Edge

Information is power. If your competitors are already racing ahead in the data game, you need to move fast to keep up.

A company that knows how to use its business intelligence (BI) typically stays at the top. All businesses can generate a staggering amount of data. But to use that information effectively, you need a way to…

• Collect data from disparate sources
• Combine it into a single source
• Analyze it to reveal insights about your company. 

This process allows businesses to make more informed decisions and predictions regarding business operations.

Taking it to the next level couples BI with the power of cloud computing services. Once siloed in different departments or locations, combining data via the cloud and analytical tools makes information available to everyone.

When used correctly, that data can help improve operations, identify new opportunities, solve problems, and maintain an edge over your competitors — particularly the ones that aren’t using the same advanced tactics. Once only available to large enterprises with big budgets, cloud BI now is more affordable and more accessible than ever for companies of all sizes.

Why Do Companies Need Business Intelligence?

This integration of cloud computing services and data analytics has opened up vast amounts of information from disparate sources, providing insights that companies can use to make faster strategic decisions. 

Cloud BI enables companies to…

• Enhance efficiencies and productivity
• Capture new insights into customer behavior and needs
• Identify new products and emerging markets
• Improve visibility of operational procedures and processes
• Create actionable insights to improve business performance 
• Refine marketing and customer outreach campaigns
• Gain a competitive advantage over other companies.

Examples of How Businesses Use Cloud BI

The affordability and faster implementation of cloud BI have opened up new possibilities. Businesses of all sizes are using cloud BI to…

• Create user profiles and customer segmentation based on data about what, when, and how often they buy specific products or services 
• Improve ROI by measuring data on marketing campaigns, and tailoring company messaging based on customer interests
• React to problems faster with a better understanding of when and where issues are happening, as well as why they are occurring
• Identify ways to improve their operations and service offerings, as well as increase employee efficiency and productivity while reducing human error
• Develop actionable insights across the entire organization and make management decisions backed by reliable data
• Identify new customer needs and revenue-generating opportunities, while also monitoring emerging trends
• Access real-time data and speed up the preparation of critical reporting functions.

Advantages of Cloud Business Intelligence

Cloud BI offers benefits that stem from the unique capabilities of the cloud by…

• Providing more flexibility than systems built on a specific hardware infrastructure 
• Incorporating the newest and best technologies available through distributed systems 
• Developing systems and applications that can withstand more change 
• Managing looser or less centralized sets of resources
• Lowering the cost of maintenance and support
• Making use of the cloud’s ability to offer versatility and scalability.

Top Cloud Business Intelligence Tools

You can choose from hundreds of cloud BI tools, depending on your company’s needs and the complexity of your data stores. However, whichever tool you choose, your cloud BI solution should provide…

• Data management capabilities to standardize information from disparate sources, transform it into the appropriate format, and transfer it to a database for analysis
• Data mining functions that sort through data sets to identify patterns and determine further analysis as needed
• Predictive analytics features provide insights about the current and future trends based on that data
• Data visualization tools that create an easy-to-understand visual representation of data and show actionable insights
• Easy-to-use tracking capacity and reporting functionality for financial and business metrics.

Ready to capitalize on affordable cloud BI? Contact the cloud computing experts at InApp to see how easy it can be.