Business Intelligence (BI) tools effectively shine a light on business data that is otherwise hidden in a dark corner of your organization’s systems. You know the data exists, but it’s either too time-consuming to track down or requires an advanced data analyst to extract and translate it.
To maintain an industry-leading position in today’s hyper-competitive economy, organizations must have the capabilities to consolidate and report on business data from multiple departments, divisions, and systems. While this capability is starting to become fairly standard, it’s less common for organizations to have mastered the objective of including international data in their BI analyses.
As you might imagine, incorporating data from countries around the globe can be tricky. Languages differ, currencies vary and even the fundamental code that systems are built on can be challenging to integrate. However, industry leaders are racing to solve their internal issues and implement a true global BI solution to gain a huge competitive advantage. Longer-term, the need to coordinate all these variables into a single global BI solution is inevitable for any business with operations outside their native country.
Global BI enables several key benefits to organizations that are investing in closer collaboration and more efficiencies of scale across country lines.
Pricing
Accessing deeper analytical insights enables the analysis of price changes and comparisons between countries. Stakeholders can determine how changes could affect sales results based on the local economy in each of their operating regions. What holds true in the US will not likely apply in China, so making decisions without clear, up-to-the-minute information on each region presents the possibility of costly errors.
Supply Chain
Gaining a comprehensive view and granular control of global inventory supply and demand is essential. Often the data is housed in disparate systems specific to a country, or sometimes even within the same country. The lack of consolidation requires excess time to analyze and react. The value of enabling all stakeholders to look at the same consolidated data simultaneously is vast. The time-savings along with a more collaborative team can create significant savings in purchasing, shipping, and a multitude of other costs.
Visualization
Viewing complex information in a visual format has proven to be useful because it more clearly demonstrates the takeaways and trends in a more obvious fashion than columns of alpha or numeric data. With teams made up of individuals from various countries that speak different languages, the challenge to convey the same information to all participants is even greater. Visualization of data output is more important in these scenarios.
Location Data
Perhaps one of the most useful, albeit underutilized, benefits of a global BI tool is location data. This includes information captured from mobile devices that provides details about the users’ current location. Location data can provide unique insights regarding consumer behaviors and reveal common patterns among specific demographics that drive more precise decision-making.
Marketing
Comparing real-time social media trends across countries can be an eye-opening experience. Social is one example of the value of global BI for marketing that can be tested and tracked to measure the engagement of people in varying countries. Modifications to graphics or phrases can be changed quickly to avoid potentially costly mistakes.
When looking for a global BI solution, consider the above examples and think of others that apply to your specific business needs. There are several innate benefits to working with a cloud-based BI solution. The unlimited accessibility, regardless of physical location, is the primary example. Request a demonstration and full documentation as you begin to assess the most beneficial global business intelligence solution for your business.