Business Intelligence is the term used to describe certain concepts and methods that are used to improve business decision making by using facts and data.
Data is unbelievably in business today. From ‘mom and pop’ stores to multi-national chains, from emergency services to financial institutions any and all data gathered on day to day business can contribute hugely to business now and in the future.
How all that important and not so important data is collected is just as important as the data itself. You can collect as much information about everything as you want, if it’s inaccessible then it’s no use to anyone. We need to be able to easily, quickly and intelligently reap the information.
There are so many ways to collect and keep data, the best way to do it depends on you, your company, your needs, your customers, your services, your growth and so much more.
Planning and implementing and data collection, storage, he backing up, the protection, the security and more can be more than slightly daunting to say the very least.
If you’re serious about business intelligence then you need to find a company who knows what all the considerations are.
Find someone who can take you through the process, from the initial idea to see is there is a need, to the solution finding, from the solution training (you need to know how to use it, right?) to the data warehousing and (preferably) off-site back-ups and (heaven forbid) recovery.
You don’t want to use some cookie cutter ‘solution’, in fact you want to make sure you’re not going to use a cookie cutter solution. Be sure that the solution suggested for your company is specific to you, tailor made for your budget, staff, clientele and needs.
Use a trustworthy, experienced company otherwise you can end up with a whole lot of man-hours put into an un-workable service that you can get very little out of.
[This post was inspired by PayPerPost. See our disclosure here]
