Four tips for improving business intelligence

Business intelligence is expected to continue growing. Analysts estimate the market is worth $42 billion in software and services, according to Channelnomics. Capabilities in advanced analysis are anticipated to improve in the next few years.

However, as technology evolves rapidly, companies have to ensure they keep up with data trends, and changes need to be monitored. But businesses have an opportunity to gain new insights by analyzing different types of data, like social media.

Most business intelligence projects have centered around reporting or visualization rather than gaining insights, according to CRN. The article offered these four tips for getting the most out of business intelligence:

1. Suspend opinions and listen to the data

   People often analyze data trends the wrong way and miss the actual cause and effect relationship.

2. Turn data into profit growth

   Data analysis projects should focus on driving business growth, customer retention and profit margins.

3. Perfect data is not necessary

   Analysis can get slowed down when people seek easily readable data. Trying to test and rewrite data conversion scripts can consume resources. Since most companies utilizing business intelligence have massive amounts of data, it does not need to perfect.

4. Business moves fast and so should analysis

   It should not take months to create and validate an analytical model. To remain competitive, companies need accuracy and speed in business intelligence. Business intelligence can help companies analyze consumer behavior and target consumers in a more efficient way, but companies can only act quickly if analysis is agile.

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