Business intelligence is a key aspect of any successful enterprise. In a recent survey by a business management software provided, 98% of business leaders reported that they rely heavily on business information to do their job well, but only 6% strongly agreed that they can access their business information quickly. What makes a great suite of business management software applications? What can they do to increase your bottom line? And how can you leverage the information to improve management as a whole in the company? These are some of the questions that I will be giving some insight about in the forthcoming series of blog entries.
Knowing where to assign the larger share of the pie is difficult. Doing this without the right information is bordering on the impossible. By gathering information on your customers and knowing what they want is key to growing your business. Bain reports that a 5% increase in customer retention can increase business profitability by up to 95%. Maybe investing more into your current systems is a better choice than allocating budget to do even more marketing. It all starts with talking to your customers and reporting this information to management effectively.
How did you land your latest contract? What made the client choose you over your competitors? Even the most informal of surveys, gathered and compiled effectively, can be used to improve your selling process. It is a great start to survey the sales people in your company. Doing it through a management portal improves the likelihood that the information will be accurate as the sales people will be less likely to exaggerate or misinform management.
Measuring the size, velocity and success of your pipeline are some very powerful metrics. By integrating business management software into your sales processes, you can gain a host of insightful measures that are key to improving your bottom line. Not knowing where the problems are with the sales process is a common complaint of sales managers- even if they do not admit it to their superiors. How can they really know where their sales people are going wrong- except through micromanagement and diverting their time from their role in management? By providing a macro perspective of the sales cycle, management can identify key areas that can be addressed.
It seems a common practice to give access of business intelligence reports to management, but not to the employees that those reports are generated on- at least until their performance evaluations are conducted. How can these reports do anything but alienate the employee and encourage them to exaggerate and provide inaccurate information? By giving all employees access to the information that is being gathered, a company can create a culture that encourages rather than admonishes. Employees become stakeholders in their performance indicators and will address the areas that require work in a productive and positive manner.
Knowing that something has deviated from the norm before your next report can drastically affect the way it affects your business. If there is a sudden loss of speed in the sales pipeline, knowing about it as soon as possible will inevitably improve the likelihood of minimizing the risk of any lost business. Management can rapidly address the issue causing the decrease in velocity and dynamically change the bottom line of the business.
These are just 5 aspects that improve a company’s bottom line. Can you think of more? Has this made you excited about implementing some business management software in your business? Comment below or contact us directly to have a discussion about how we can bring your company into the digital age- and make your company more profitable!
