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Hub You - An introduction to Business Intelligence - The Intelligent Organization
Some people have a very skewed view of the world and condemn Wal-Mart for the incredible rise to power. You see, Wal-Mart is a great American Company and Sam Walton was a brilliant man, with vision, intelligence and passion for excellence. I would be proud to be a Wal-Mart Greeter in my retirement in his honor.Wal-Mart is the distribution system for the United States of America and those nations Wal-Mart moves into will be well served by over 212,000 skews and choice and low prices, Consumer Choice, freedom and variety. Wal-Mart is a wonderful example of what Free-Enterprise can do for the World. Still some say all the products in Wal-Mart are made in China.That is not true at all. 46% of the products in Wal-Ma
2. I know which carriers are most often damaging my shipments (and on which routes) and/or delivering them late to my customers.
3. I'm able to predict product demand and trade that information for more cash and less inventory.
Strategy management
1. My employees view individualized key performance indicators, aligning them with the corporate strategy.
2. My employees have instant access to a knowledge base of information that helps them to do their job.
Human resources
1. I'm able to use leading indicators to preempt health and safety incidents.
2. I have the leading information required to measure and manage employee satisfaction and increase employee retention.
What could you do?
If you answered "No" to many or most of these questions (or similar questions), your business processes may move too slowly in the technology-driven Internet age. You'll likely have increasing difficul
It is happening to people all over the country; in large cities and small towns. Companies are downsizing or closing. You may be with the same firm for 20+ years in a senior position and still you are not immune to the chopping block.During a brain-storming telephone conversation my friend casually mentioned what another friend did to make extra money. I thought, oh sure, another stuffing envelope business or something similar. That wasn’t the case at all – this person worked as a legal secretary by day – and medical transcriptionist by night using the internet to receive and send documents. The light bulb flashed on and I thought – I can do that. How hard can it be to type?The search began for a reputabl
In both business and military operations, it's easy to see the correlation between the quality of intelligence and the success of operations: Those who comprehend and act quickly upon relevant facts have advantages over those who do not.
For this reason, intelligence has value to the business organization. Naturally, tools and technologies to collect and distribute of information—or to improve its quality—-will be embraced and employed quickly.
In this article, we'll take a look at some questions that BI can help answer, and we'll offer a few examples of how business intelligence is used.
Two examples of business intelligence
Some believe BI to be the magic differentiator between great and mediocre companies. Consider this example.
The Big Bank had a target of acquiring 200,000 new accounts, a number that would require mailing offers to 10 million prospects using a 2 percent return rate, an expected rate for direct mail. Instead, the Big Bank used BI techniques to mail to a "refined" subset of all prospects yielding a response rate of 12 percent.
Instead of mailing to the 10 million prospects, BI required the bank to send mail to about 2 million, which generated the required new accounts. In addition to reducing cost, the average profitability of an acquired customer was three times higher than usual because data mining had targeted the customers whose needs best matched The Big Bank's services.
Here's another scenario.
A quick-change oil company takes information from 2,500 stores and has information uploaded each night to servers at its headquarters. The chain's main office immediately analyzes key operational measures: cars serviced, costs, revenues, profits, and trends.
By 5:30 A.M., performance data is available to the company's managers who can check current revenue, average ticket price, time required to do each job, and other performance measures. Franchisees with multiple locations can see consolidated views, as can the company's regional managers.
Rate yourself
Now that you've read these two examples, try to answer the following questions to see whether your information systems allow you to accomplish the following tasks quickly, easily, and directly. Answer "No" if you depend on others to procure information or if your business and performance measurements lag after the fact.
Revenues and profitability
1. I can identify the products, services, and channels driving my revenue and profit.
2. I can rank customers and customer locations by profitability.
3. I am automatically alerted when critical costs, such as non-billable overtime rates, fall out of control.
4. I know when my sales reps/managers are on target, and I can intervene in time to make a difference.
Customer relationship management
1. I can identify low-value customers and try to improve their value or design them out of my business.
2. I am able to spot customer relationship problems early by monitoring leading satisfaction indicators, such as product or service quality.
Sales and marketing
1. I'm able to target high-value customers in order to lower my marketing risk.
2. I'm able to rank the success of product promotions to know what's effective by product and market segment.
3. I know what's in my sales pipeline.
Finance
1. I can identify underutilized assets.
2. I'm confident that I have the facts to make the right capital asset choices in next year's budget.
3. My budgets are based on accurate histories and current trends, not on pie-in-the-sky figures, guesses, or sandbagged numbers.
Supply chain
1. I can easily identify how much I'm spending with each supplier and use that information to negotiate lower costs.
2. I know which carriers are most often damaging my shipments (and on which routes) and/or delivering them late to my customers.
3. I'm able to predict product demand and trade that information for more cash and less inventory.
Strategy management
1. My employees view individualized key performance indicators, aligning them with the corporate strategy.
2. My employees have instant access to a knowledge base of information that helps them to do their job.
Human resources
1. I'm able to use leading indicators to preempt health and safety incidents.
2. I have the leading information required to measure and manage employee satisfaction and increase employee retention.
What could you do?
If you answered "No" to many or most of these questions (or similar questions), your business processes may move too slowly in the technology-driven Internet age. You'll likely have increasing difficul
You can spend thousands of dollars on advertising, direct mail, yellow pages and you name it, but it is simply amazing how much mileage you can get out of good customer service. You will have referrals, repeat customers and an excellent standing in the community. More importantly you can save thousands on your advertising bills.Of course real customer service is not free. You must train your employees on how you do things, you must go out of your way to provide such service and chances are you will indeed pay more for pleasant and helpful employees to keep them. But there is no doubt that good customer service will bring them back over and over again to shop with you over your competitors.What so many companies
Two examples of business intelligence
Some believe BI to be the magic differentiator between great and mediocre companies. Consider this example.
The Big Bank had a target of acquiring 200,000 new accounts, a number that would require mailing offers to 10 million prospects using a 2 percent return rate, an expected rate for direct mail. Instead, the Big Bank used BI techniques to mail to a "refined" subset of all prospects yielding a response rate of 12 percent.
Instead of mailing to the 10 million prospects, BI required the bank to send mail to about 2 million, which generated the required new accounts. In addition to reducing cost, the average profitability of an acquired customer was three times higher than usual because data mining had targeted the customers whose needs best matched The Big Bank's services.
Here's another scenario.
A quick-change oil company takes information from 2,500 stores and has information uploaded each night to servers at its headquarters. The chain's main office immediately analyzes key operational measures: cars serviced, costs, revenues, profits, and trends.
By 5:30 A.M., performance data is available to the company's managers who can check current revenue, average ticket price, time required to do each job, and other performance measures. Franchisees with multiple locations can see consolidated views, as can the company's regional managers.
Rate yourself
Now that you've read these two examples, try to answer the following questions to see whether your information systems allow you to accomplish the following tasks quickly, easily, and directly. Answer "No" if you depend on others to procure information or if your business and performance measurements lag after the fact.
Revenues and profitability
1. I can identify the products, services, and channels driving my revenue and profit.
2. I can rank customers and customer locations by profitability.
3. I am automatically alerted when critical costs, such as non-billable overtime rates, fall out of control.
4. I know when my sales reps/managers are on target, and I can intervene in time to make a difference.
Customer relationship management
1. I can identify low-value customers and try to improve their value or design them out of my business.
2. I am able to spot customer relationship problems early by monitoring leading satisfaction indicators, such as product or service quality.
Sales and marketing
1. I'm able to target high-value customers in order to lower my marketing risk.
2. I'm able to rank the success of product promotions to know what's effective by product and market segment.
3. I know what's in my sales pipeline.
Finance
1. I can identify underutilized assets.
2. I'm confident that I have the facts to make the right capital asset choices in next year's budget.
3. My budgets are based on accurate histories and current trends, not on pie-in-the-sky figures, guesses, or sandbagged numbers.
Supply chain
1. I can easily identify how much I'm spending with each supplier and use that information to negotiate lower costs.
2. I know which carriers are most often damaging my shipments (and on which routes) and/or delivering them late to my customers.
3. I'm able to predict product demand and trade that information for more cash and less inventory.
Strategy management
1. My employees view individualized key performance indicators, aligning them with the corporate strategy.
2. My employees have instant access to a knowledge base of information that helps them to do their job.
Human resources
1. I'm able to use leading indicators to preempt health and safety incidents.
2. I have the leading information required to measure and manage employee satisfaction and increase employee retention.
What could you do?
If you answered "No" to many or most of these questions (or similar questions), your business processes may move too slowly in the technology-driven Internet age. You'll likely have increasing difficul
Recently we helped a small business owner re-write his marketing and business plans. The owner was grateful for the new copy, but expressed a concern that he may have issues writing copy for marketing materials later in the year. He said,"It is so hard to start from scratch writing a marketing document when you have a blank piece of paper staring you in the face." We understood completely and wanted to leave him with a tool that could help him create "branded copy" quickly. We came up with a "content blocks" tool to help him locate chunks of content to "plug and play" into all types of sales / marketing documents. Checking back with the owner, he has used the Contents Blocks document in several way
By 5:30 A.M., performance data is available to the company's managers who can check current revenue, average ticket price, time required to do each job, and other performance measures. Franchisees with multiple locations can see consolidated views, as can the company's regional managers.
Rate yourself
Now that you've read these two examples, try to answer the following questions to see whether your information systems allow you to accomplish the following tasks quickly, easily, and directly. Answer "No" if you depend on others to procure information or if your business and performance measurements lag after the fact.
Revenues and profitability
1. I can identify the products, services, and channels driving my revenue and profit.
2. I can rank customers and customer locations by profitability.
3. I am automatically alerted when critical costs, such as non-billable overtime rates, fall out of control.
4. I know when my sales reps/managers are on target, and I can intervene in time to make a difference.
Customer relationship management
1. I can identify low-value customers and try to improve their value or design them out of my business.
2. I am able to spot customer relationship problems early by monitoring leading satisfaction indicators, such as product or service quality.
Sales and marketing
1. I'm able to target high-value customers in order to lower my marketing risk.
2. I'm able to rank the success of product promotions to know what's effective by product and market segment.
3. I know what's in my sales pipeline.
Finance
1. I can identify underutilized assets.
2. I'm confident that I have the facts to make the right capital asset choices in next year's budget.
3. My budgets are based on accurate histories and current trends, not on pie-in-the-sky figures, guesses, or sandbagged numbers.
Supply chain
1. I can easily identify how much I'm spending with each supplier and use that information to negotiate lower costs.
2. I know which carriers are most often damaging my shipments (and on which routes) and/or delivering them late to my customers.
3. I'm able to predict product demand and trade that information for more cash and less inventory.
Strategy management
1. My employees view individualized key performance indicators, aligning them with the corporate strategy.
2. My employees have instant access to a knowledge base of information that helps them to do their job.
Human resources
1. I'm able to use leading indicators to preempt health and safety incidents.
2. I have the leading information required to measure and manage employee satisfaction and increase employee retention.
What could you do?
If you answered "No" to many or most of these questions (or similar questions), your business processes may move too slowly in the technology-driven Internet age. You'll likely have increasing difficul
Are you an aspiring leader in your company, your own business or some other kind of organization and you are trying to figure out how to get others to follow you? Here are some helpful hints, which have worked great for me.1. Read books written by great leaders and others who have lead large teams. Two of my favorites include: You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader by Mark Sanborn and Developing the Leader Within You by John Maxwell.2. Seek out the advice of other leaders with your organization or within you same kind of business. Find out what they do, who they follow and what they read and then do the same kinds of things and listen to the same people.3. Hang out with other leaders. Attend their confere
4. I know when my sales reps/managers are on target, and I can intervene in time to make a difference.
Customer relationship management
1. I can identify low-value customers and try to improve their value or design them out of my business.
2. I am able to spot customer relationship problems early by monitoring leading satisfaction indicators, such as product or service quality.
Sales and marketing
1. I'm able to target high-value customers in order to lower my marketing risk.
2. I'm able to rank the success of product promotions to know what's effective by product and market segment.
3. I know what's in my sales pipeline.
Finance
1. I can identify underutilized assets.
2. I'm confident that I have the facts to make the right capital asset choices in next year's budget.
3. My budgets are based on accurate histories and current trends, not on pie-in-the-sky figures, guesses, or sandbagged numbers.
Supply chain
1. I can easily identify how much I'm spending with each supplier and use that information to negotiate lower costs.
2. I know which carriers are most often damaging my shipments (and on which routes) and/or delivering them late to my customers.
3. I'm able to predict product demand and trade that information for more cash and less inventory.
Strategy management
1. My employees view individualized key performance indicators, aligning them with the corporate strategy.
2. My employees have instant access to a knowledge base of information that helps them to do their job.
Human resources
1. I'm able to use leading indicators to preempt health and safety incidents.
2. I have the leading information required to measure and manage employee satisfaction and increase employee retention.
What could you do?
If you answered "No" to many or most of these questions (or similar questions), your business processes may move too slowly in the technology-driven Internet age. You'll likely have increasing difficul
Are you an entrepreneur? Not everyone is, and that's fine. The world needs entrepreneurs, managers and worker bees, but determining the category that you actually fall in can help make your life more successful.Remember that an entrepreneur is a risk taker and a builder who rejects the commonly accepted idea of security in a paycheck signed by someone else. The entrepreneur is the one who signs the paychecks for others, and has the self-confidence to take the risks necessary to build the business that provides the jobs for others.The entrepreneur must be creative, hard working, smart working, persistent, motivated, full of stamina, dedicated, energetic and able to direct the efforts of others. He must be able t
2. I know which carriers are most often damaging my shipments (and on which routes) and/or delivering them late to my customers.
3. I'm able to predict product demand and trade that information for more cash and less inventory.
Strategy management
1. My employees view individualized key performance indicators, aligning them with the corporate strategy.
2. My employees have instant access to a knowledge base of information that helps them to do their job.
Human resources
1. I'm able to use leading indicators to preempt health and safety incidents.
2. I have the leading information required to measure and manage employee satisfaction and increase employee retention.
What could you do?
If you answered "No" to many or most of these questions (or similar questions), your business processes may move too slowly in the technology-driven Internet age. You'll likely have increasing difficulty maintaining a grip on your customers, prices, profitability, and employees as more-enterprising companies leverage technology, improve their processes, and capture market share.
But if you answered "Yes" to many of these questions, yours is likely an intelligent organization. You possess superior intelligence regarding your employees, customers, partners, and operations. People at all levels can manage their own affairs, have intimate knowledge of your organization's strategy, and know where to find information needed for further analysis quickly and directly.
Prabir Sen,
M.Sc Engg (London)
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