Business has become more fast paced and fiercely competitive. Potential clients have a plethora of companies to choose from when considering where they want to do business; in a tough economy, some are outsourcing to foreign companies and technology has affected nearly every aspect of business over the course of just a few years.
These changes have intimidated many businesses, but those that have survived have learned to adapt to the new world, embracing the changes they first found threatening. If companies want to thrive in a new global economy, one extremely beneficial tool to carry in their arsenal is business analytics software. Business analytics is about more than just numbers, though – keep reading to find out some of the most impressive benefits of the business analytics process:
Only the best information
In this day and age, sloppy or inaccurate sales and demographic information is unacceptable. A minor error in a spreadsheet may result in inaccurate sales numbers, employee assessments and other mistakes that cost a company money.
Luckily, business analytics software has largely solved this problem. Instead of using precious resources and employee time to update spreadsheets every day, a company can use these software programs to create accurate and efficient reports that will appropriately reflect business practices.
Business analytics software quickly digs through sales statistics, employee behavior, branch performance and much more. Using this hard data, the software creates graphs and charts for VPs of sales and other executives. This information will never become out of date, either. An executive can use the software to gather sales data on a weekly or even daily basis. Before an executive has their first cup of coffee in the morning, they will be able to see updates on overall performance and can count on reliable metrics.
Stay ahead of competition
Equipped with this information, presented in colorful graphs and charts that help make sense of the countless lines of data, executives can see where a company needs to improve. They can compare company performance to overarching industry trends and find clear pathways to outperform competition.
For example, if a VP of sales notices that a certain product is performing particularly well at the West Coast branch of a company, they can investigate the cause of this success. Perhaps the market demand is higher for a product or service in this region. Or, by looking through sales data, a VP of sales may notice that there are a few salespeople on the West Coast who are excelling in pushing these sales.
If this is the case, an executive can request these top performers come to another branch and lead training sessions to help other salespeople achieve the same level of success. These training exercises will push employees to greater heights and keep a company ahead of the competition.
Free up time and resources
Every employee is valuable to a business – one of the worst mistakes a manager can make is to misuse the talents of their staff. Asking HR professionals or administrators to take on the task of updating spreadsheets with sales numbers and attendance, in addition to the other tasks they were hired to do, is a waste of energy and resources.
It often happens that these professionals, who are busy dealing with human resources issues and ensuring an office runs efficiently, will end up leaving sales data entry until the end of the day. As with any endeavor, errors are made when workers are pressed for time. Besides, these individuals have stronger talents best put to use in other areas of the business, and using up their time to fill out spreadsheets prevents them from living up to their true potential.
