Is BI Worth the Money?

If the conversation of business intelligence comes up, one of the first questions that will come up from interested companies is “Is it really worth the investment?” And that’s a tough question to answer as it’s hard to give out guarantees because much of the payoff has to do with the work done on your end.

One thing that is certain, however, is that if you’re having trouble with the flow of your business and currently don’t have a BI solution, then there’s great potential for a more effective and streamlined workplace with one.

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the mounds of information that has to be collected, analyzed and shared amongst your team. And this is where business intelligence thrives. But back to the original question: is it worth it? To answer this question, we’ll break down the areas of a basic business infrastructure without BI and see how a BI software can drastically improve company operations.

Data Collection in One Place

A workplace without any type of business intelligence is likely working with a few different softwares. Now, while this may work, it is likely more time consuming than it has to be and more scattered than it should be.

Multiple spreadsheets, softwares and networks can become a pain for employees and can certainly slow down the workflow. BI allows a company to gather all of this data in one central location for the convenience of the employees on every level. With all the time that would be saved with a new software, employees will have more opportunities to handle other tasks, which could possibly generate more revenue for the company.

Employee Training

For staff members who are in charge of data collection, having multiple sources for data can become a breeding ground for bottlenecking. With the assistance of a business intelligence software, these individuals have the opportunity to maximize production as the technology will help to lighten the workload.

Due to the high volume of one’s workload, it’s not uncommon to get delayed in reporting. If your team has multiple people assembling data and coordinating its distribution to the company’s decision makers, a BI investment can turn that segment of big data collection on its head by getting those reports to management faster.

When it comes to analyzing these inefficiencies in your company, another question has to be raised: are these setbacks actually costing my company? And more than just general revenue, these less-than-optimized operations can be costing your business opportunities and wasted time.

Statistics Proving Technology Works

And while these are hypothetical scenarios that are listed in this post, there is actually research that’s been conduct to show the return on investment for business analytics and intelligence tools. According to Nucleus Research, analytics and its payoff is huge.

“In analyzing ROI case studies on analytics, we found the average returns from analytics have been increasing, reaching $13.01 for every dollar spent in 2014 from just $10.66 in 2011.”

That’s 1300%! That’s pretty impressive — and worth the investment.

Fortunately, the transition to business intelligence doesn’t have to be a drastic one. Starting with the basic technology is a big step in itself that saves your company the trouble of finding a way to put all the most important big data in one location. Once you see the results yourself and the payoff starts to show in your actual bottom line, you can use what you’ve earned to invest in more technology to further improve your company.