The best way for an organization to collect, organize, and view their data easily and comprehensively is with the use of business intelligence tools.
Business intelligence tools offer more “complete” information about current company performance because they offer a dynamic, real-time picture of what is happening in an organization versus the static data representation of yesteryear. That is, before the advanced business intelligence solutions of today, business performance was measured by looking at what was essentially a screenshot of “captured” data. That method did not offer true insight because it was merely a tiny, frozen snippet of a larger whole – with business intelligence solutions, true insight is achieved because executives can watch changes as they occur.
More and more businesses are turning to this type of solution as they watch the amount of data they deal with grow exponentially larger. Companies want to stay competitive and, as the need to view more and more data at a faster and faster pace grows, business intelligence tools are helping them deal with the information overload and still stay in the game. A company’s business decisions become easier to make – not to mention being made more quickly and more pro-actively – when dynamic, real-time, and accurate information is available.
Traditionally, business intelligence solutions have catered to larger, more complex organizations with expensive software; small and midsized businesses have long been left to rely on Excel® for their data analysis. The business world, however, is changing: business intelligence tools are making their way into the middle market.
In fact, analysts agree that the importance of business intelligence and analytics is rising in corporations of all sizes. The market for business intelligence is forecasted to reach $50.7 billion by 2016 and believed by some to be as high as $136 billion by 2020. A technology and market research company called Forrester Research wrote an article called Top 10 Business Intelligence Predictions for 2012. In it, the author stated that, “Actually businesses have no choice but to act and react quickly in the face of financial volatility and rapidly changing business and regulatory conditions.”
Keep watching our blog for more information about business intelligence tools or contact Oates & Company with questions.
