subject: Six Bloopers Corporations are Making Today [print this page] Six Bloopers Corporations are Making Today
Mistake 1: Taking Existing Customers for Granted
You can use data integration and cleansing tools to bring together infor?mation from disparate sources. dash?boards and visualization tools help make data accessible, providing visibility into customer trends. what can you do with business intelligence tools like these? As an example, for each major customer or customer segment, you can analyze multiple scenarios to find an approach that builds on existing relationships and increases your share of each customer's wallet. You might decide to extend credit or develop creative payment plans for your most important customers. or analyze customer satisfaction scores to identify areas where improvement is needed, such as product quality or customer service - ensuring that profit?able customers stay happy and loyal. .
Mistake 2: Failing to Capitalize on Market Opportunities
Even with limited investment funds, you still have to make fact-based decisions about short-and long-term opportunities to grow top-line revenues - whether you're trying to expand into new markets or extend a successful product line. many great brands were launched dur?ing recessionary times and yet able to capitalize on unique market opportunities. To invest in and seize market opportu?nities with confidence, you need a solution that helps you see trends and variances, analyze scenarios, and select the right combination of initiatives to maximize your returns.
To inform the right decisions, you need simple, intuitive ad hoc reporting and analysis. A business intelligence solution should support interactive exploration across multiple dimensions of your business and let you create queries using business-friendly language. what-if analysis allows you to model the operational and financial impact of multiple scenarios on revenue, costs, and cash flow - to understand the results of each market opportunity before you act on it. Layer on risk assessment to determine the range of potential out?comes for each opportunity and add economic analysis to select and priori?tize promising scenarios. The result? You have the hard facts to back up the investment decisions that drive sales, cash flow, and operational efficiency.
Mistake 3: Allowing Operational Inefficiencies to Persist
To keep the cost of delivering goods and services in line, you must continu?ally find ways to reduce waste and eliminate inefficiencies. if operational wastefulness persists, you can lose control of your cost structures - and that puts pressure on your gross mar?gins. economic woes and restricted cash flows are forcing companies to analyze cost structures by delving deeper into the information already at their fingertips. Because of this, analysts point to a rising interest in business intelligence software.
An integrated business intelligence solution that generates timely and accurate data puts you in a position to identify - and quickly address - inefficiencies. dashboards can deliver immediate feedback on administrative waste and unnecessary overtime. use analytics to monitor manufacturing defects, maintenance costs, and inventory levels; then track progress to minimize rework and rationalize.
Mistake 4: Letting Problems Go Undiagnosed and Uncorrected
In today's business environment, an organization needs to address all outstanding issues - but you must first identify and prioritize existing problems, then focus your time and energy on the most crucial. no organization wants to wait until a product is drastically behind schedule or a department significantly over budget before taking action. How?ever, if you manually track project or program status, you risk not only wast?ing time and money on an ineffective approach but also delaying your ability to identify and then correct problems. As Thomson notes, "Leaders of expo?nential growth companies utilize a systematic approach to problem solving." during down market cycles, these companies identified and eliminated problems and then worked to optimize their business. For example, these companies found ways to streamline processes, reduce headcount in selective areas, and invest in systems and IT infrastructure to improve customer management or market intelligence.
Mistake 5: Driving the Wrong Behavior in the Organization
If your corporate goals aren't clearly defined, communicated, and measured, you're missing out on an opportunity to encourage beneficial behaviors. You may improve performance in one department or division at the expense of overall company performance. Gartner suggests that organizations "show how performance management efforts will benefit the enterprise if metrics and reporting align to corporate goals.
For example, dashboards - integrated with software, such as microsoft office, that you use every day - help you com?municate metrics, track progress, and reward success. dashboards give immediate performance feedback; you get the information you need to take quick and decisive actions to correct behaviors, rather than having to wait for quarterly reports to decipher trends. visualization tools help your employees and you focus quickly on high-impact issues - such as improving customer service or reducing product defects. Your entire team can see where data comes from and how results are calcu?lated, and can interact with reports - instilling confidence in the numbers and encouraging individual and collaborative actions that benefit the company.
Mistake 6: Failing to Offer Transparency for Stakeholders
The global economic crisis is leading business stakeholders and governments to demand greater transparency into company finances, retirement plans, pension plans operations, decisions, and core performance metrics. However, many organizations find that overly complex reporting hampers their ability to demonstrate compliance or fiscal health. According to Gartner analyst Bill Hostmann, "most organizations find they do not have the information, processes, and tools needed by their managers to make informed, responsive decisions. Too many enterprises under-invest in their information infrastructure and business users tools."
Business intelligence solutions make it easy to share critical business informa?tion across internal business functions and with external stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, partners, and investors. A complete business intelli?gence solution supports the entire range of enterprise reporting - periodic, highly detailed reports that give insight into overall business performance and pro?vide increased reporting transparency for all stakeholders. The result is increased trust and stronger collaboration at all levels, inside and outside the business.
