Did you realise that there are almost 2.7 zettabytes of digital data in the world? And most of this data is useful for some reason or another. But its main contribution is in the expansion of a number of macro and micro-economies, lots of which are companies of all shapes and sizes.
In fact, a recent report showed that business intelligence is growing at approximately 8% every year. The main reason behind this is that intelligence or business analytics have shown outstanding results repeatedly. So, if you’re still running your business without the support of business analytics then here are some reasons why you should look into it:
1. It Can Help You to Quantify Business Progress
Quantification of intangible parameters in business allows you to estimate its development and growth. For example, if like all good companies, your business has a mission statement, you would want to know how close you are to achieving this goal and business analytics can help you do this.
Business analytics can help you to express your goals in a less generalised, tangible way, like in the form of productivity, sales or net profits.
Quantification of these amounts will also help you to refine the roles of your employees according to how well your business is progressing. When you attach information and data to the mission of your organisation, your employees will be more motivated to meet these goals, which in turn will help to improve productivity.
2. It Can Increase Smart Decision Making
Business owners or business managers need to have a firm grip of their business data. Information doesn’t always mean intelligence, particularly if it is scattered all around the organisation. The sole purpose of business analytics is to make the data structured and analysable.Once youhave analysed this data, it can be usedto help your business make smarter decisions.
Business analytics is run on data. All kinds of data need to be analysed,including data that relates to your operations, your company, and your customers.In order to improve your business, you will need to collect accurate data that is represented correctly. You can use this data to predict future trends in your business, potential dips in your revenue stream or see what was the most successful service/product.
This useful data will help you make smarter decisions about policies and investments, so you can make maximum profits.
3. It Can Give You Better Insights into Business Functions
One of the best things about data is that it can be easily made into visual representations. This makes it a lot easier for analysists to work with. With the help of charts and graphs, the analytics team can predict future business trends against time durations, which then allows them to make more informed decisions.
In other words, analysts who have access to more organised data can clearly see what direction your business should move in. Hiring a business analyst is often expensive, but there are ways around this. You could consider training an existing employee in this subject.There is a lot an employee with an MSc in business analytics can do, as this article from Aston University explains. That person will likely become an integral part of your management team once they have gained such a valuable qualification.
4. More Information Leads to Greater Awareness
The main way to improve an organisation’s performance is to find out where it’s going wrong and see where it’s performing well. In many cases, results can be misleading due to misinterpretation or miscommunication.
However, data and numbers impart the greatest level of objectification in any company. More importantly, digital data can be updated and collected in real-time. This results in the business being more aware of their developments, performance, and functions.
This has become a godsend for all data-orientated business where things change quickly. In these cases, businesses can keep up to date with changing trends as they happen.
5. Higher Efficiency
When a business is able to look at and analyse large amounts of data at a fast speed, they are able to spot and make fast changes to their policies, functions, and data trends.
Overall, having data that can be easily accessed and analysed gives a business the opportunity to alter their operations and meet their business goals. This moldability and dynamic process of making changes as they need to can help them to achieve the maximum efficiency within their business.
6. Data Can Help You Understand Your Site’s Keywords
We all assume that we know what words or phrases are driving people to our website. However, analytics will actually be able to tell you for certain. You’ll be able to look at your organic search traffic to see which words or phrases are used the most in helping people to find your site. You’llthen be able to go a step further by being able to see how often people search a certain term and how they perform once they access your site. Once you know this information you will be able to link it to other data to help make important changes to your site’s keywords.
7. Data Can Help You Understand Your Customers Better
In the last few years, the journey from a customer showing an initial interest towards a service or product, to them making a purchase has changed considerably. In simple words, customer engagement has outweighed outrageous promotions.
Search analytics helps businesses improve their customer knowledge so that they can incorporate new measures and drive their customer experience. The main goal of all businesses is to provide the best level of customer satisfaction and retention.
Of course, once you know what people are looking for and how they are using your site, you’ll be able to understand them a bit better. You will start to be able to notice patterns in the way they behave, and you can then segment them in the same way you would segment your keywords. You may notice that users who find your site from a review site are more likely to buy products from you, even though they don’t spend long on your site.Or you may discover that they are being sent to your site from places that you might not expect. All of the information you collect will give you an idea of what your customers are looking for. Maybe they need more information before they are willing to make a purchase, or they may need more trust factors. By analysing the data and becoming familiar with the activities and path your visitors take, you can target them better and improve the experience they have on your site.
8. It Can Improve Your Customer Service
Business is all about providing your customers with a world-class experience. Most successful businesses pride themselves on offering their customers an outstanding customer experience. When you make a good impression on your customers, they are more likely to return for repeat business. Evidence has shown that 8% of your current customer base can lead to 40% of your total income.
Data gleaned from online analytics can locate and compile the data about your repeat customers. Once you have collected this data you will be able to create strategies in order to attract them to make more purchases from you. Thishelps businesses to give their customers a data-driven experience which helps keep them in front of their competitors.
9. It Can Help You Understand Which Web Pages Are Meeting Your Customers Needs
Having a good website is extremely important in business. By looking at your website analytics, you will be able to see which web pages are meeting your customers’ needs and which aren’t. Pages on your site that are not sending visitors deeper into the conversion path may need to be altered. By spotting problems on your site, you will be able to resolve them.
10. It Can Help You Understand Offline Successes
Of course, not everything related to your business happens online. You’re speaking at local workshops, you’re participating in events in your community, and you’re constantly producing new brochures for your business. Your advertising analytics can help you to keep track of these successes too, and it can help you do it in a variety of different ways. For example, you might decide to set up different URLs for print and radio so that you can see which advertising method worked better. Or you can use radio advertising to ask people to search for a specific term on a search engine and then monitor the activity it produces. Or you can see which words visitors are using to find your site online and then match them to offline actions. Even if something starts offline, it doesn’t mean it won’t finish on your website. Analysing data will just help you to keep a track of it.
Keeping an eye on your business and web analytics can give you an idea of what your customers want and how well your business is performing. This will allow you to respond to changes and be ahead of your competitors. Over time, this will allow you to create a more successful business that is more focused on the wants and needs of your customers.
