The goal of Business Intelligence (BI) is simple: Efficiency. BI allows companies a closer look at how they are operating by taking inventory of where they are doing well and where they can improve. The purpose of BI is to leverage data to make decisions that improve and optimize revenue.

Why You Need BI in Times of Crisis

In times of crisis, Business Intelligence is an area of your company that really shines. Revenues are decreasing and budget problems come into play. By leveraging BI, you’ll discover things you may already know about (like the obvious revenue changes), but you’ll discover things you didn’t know, like the root cause of those changes and how they affect specific levers within your organization.
That is why a BI framework needs to be set in place. If your company doesn’t already have this set up prior to the crisis, it is not too late to get started. If it does, now is the time to leverage it to answer your questions and align your decisions to your company goals.

Tips for Leveraging BI in a COVID-19 World

The high-level challenges businesses are facing are the same. Companies are losing money, and that’s not a surprise.. That’s why it’s important to narrow down consumer behaviour and assess what is relevant for your audiences.

1. Make time to benchmark and assess your new goals. Clarify what your ultimate goal is (as a company, and as a business unit) and define how you measure it.
2. Do a targeted exploration of your data to uncover unlikely or overlooked revenue drivers and/or areas of cost inefficiency.
3. Analyze your data in a daily fashion instead of weekly. News and policies are constantly shifting because this is an exploratory period, and this is having an effect on your business.
4. Take a look at your consumer demographics. For example, are QSRs doing enough to offset the loss in revenue from dine-in?
5. Create test scenarios, measure their impact, and test the likely outcome against your defined goals.
6. Select the optimal scenario relative to your goals.
7. Measure your achievements against your goals, taking into account any new data available.
8. Don’t be afraid to change tactics in case the approach taken does not get you closer to your goals.

It doesn’t take relatively long to put together dashboards that are automated and at hand to help you make decisions. You just need to ask the right questions and be mindful of the sheer amount of data that you’re collecting, which is the key to your company’s growth in the post-COVID-19 era.

What have we learnt?

When business is going well, it’s easy to overlook how much data your company is collecting. It’s even easier to neglect maintaining your BI framework that turns valuable insights into action.
However, COVID-19 has expedited the need for all companies to put their data to work to speed up the decision-making process.
A comprehensive BI practice can help you define the proper metrics to survive a crisis better, and these times can be a silver lining for many businesses. Companies are forced to revisit metrics they may not have been paying attention to in the past, and as a result, they must establish new goals and be mindful of the current situation we are all in.