Leveraging Business Intelligence in Tough Economic Times

In its 2023 “Global Economic Prospects” report, the World Bank warned that further adverse shocks could push the global economy into recession. Kristalina Georgieva of the IMF called 2023 a “tough year”. As global uncertainty persists, leveraging Business Intelligence (BI) in tough times is now a strategic necessity.

Fitch Ratings reduced its world growth forecast to 1.4% in 2023 (against 1.7% last September). Brian Coulton of Fitch Ratings says, “Taming inflation is proving harder than expected as price pressures broaden and become more entrenched.”

A 2021 Deloitte report outlined that 75% of CFOs believed an economic slowdown or recession was ahead of them. They were right.

Today, businesses are taking a proactive approach to data management to maintain their competitive advantage. In the wake of this economic uncertainty, enterprises are adopting a data-driven strategy to improve their business clarity. A report found that during the COVID-19 crisis, more organizations started using Business Intelligence (BI).

So, how can BI solutions help businesses navigate tough economic times? Let’s discuss.

How Business Intelligence Helps Companies Navigate Economic Downturns

In today’s uncertain times, BI-enabled solutions are a key element to the survival of any enterprise. Yet, many organizations realize this only after scaling their business beyond the tipping point.

According to the aforementioned Deloitte report, organizations that responded best to any recession were the ones that had prepared for a crisis. This means facilitating digital transformation before the next recession or slowdown. Besides that, companies are innovatively using BI and data analytics to address their critical business challenges. 55% of enterprises are utilizing their data to predict outcomes and improve their decision-making skills.

Here is how BI-enabled decision-making can benefit organizations:

1. Cost Efficiency: Backed by accurate data, business intelligence enables managers and executives to make better data-driven decisions. For instance, leaders can identify new business opportunities and inefficient processes that are cost intensive. BI-enabled systems can measure the organization’s cash flow, profits, revenues, and overall costs. Without business intelligence, organizations must accommodate low-quality project management that can hamper growth and reduce profitability.
2. Efficient Resource Utilization: During an economic downturn, organizations try to utilize their available workforce or resources by addressing skill gaps or constantly hiring (or firing) employees.With BI technology, they can optimally utilize their resources with real-time data insights from various KPIs and metrics.
3. Customer Insights: BI tools can also enable companies to understand and predict customer behavior. For instance, retail companies can improve their sales forecasts and plan their sales operations accordingly. Retail companies can accurately predict and handle seasonal spikes (or drops) by tracking customer orders and market trends.Similarly, with BI solutions, “intelligent” enterprises can leverage customer analytics to retain customers, identify upselling or cross-selling opportunities, and improve customer satisfaction.
4. Monitoring Relevant KPIs and Metrics: Business intelligence is built around key metrics and KPIs, including financial, marketing, and HR-related metrics. Using BI tools, organizations can monitor KPIs and metrics that can impact their business. These include:
   • Financial metrics like cash flow, liquidity ratio, and net earnings vs. net income.
   • Marketing metrics like customer conversion rates and cost of customer acquisition.
   • Customer service metrics like the net promoter score and customer effort score.

How can Emergys help you implement a successful business intelligence strategy? Let’s discuss that next.

How Emergys Enables a Future-Proof Business Intelligence Strategy

As a technology solution provider, Emergys can help you put your business intelligence and analytics to work for your business benefits. With our customized BI solutions, companies can extract valuable data insights to survive in any tough economic situation.

They can obtain insights into various business areas, including customer service, operations, and financials.

Here are some ways in which we provides business value to its customers:

Define the BI and Analytics strategy.

• Analyze the existing data assets in the organization.
• Develop enterprise-wide data warehouses and data marts.
• Leverage BI tools to develop customized reporting solutions.
• Migrate legacy systems and BI systems to the latest technologies.
• Provide predictive analytics for accurate sales and production forecasts.
• Develop a roadmap for data governance in the organization.

Among the successful case studies, the Emergys team implemented an enterprise-wide business intelligence solution for a leading consumer product company. Here are some of the highlights of the BI implementation:

• Enterprise data warehouse for meeting the current and future requirements of the company.
• Customized executive dashboards for all CXOs.
• Predictive analytics to address future business needs.

Conclusion

As more organizations and industries face a tough and uncertain future, they increase their investments in data-driven business intelligence solutions. This article highlights that BI technology can improve the real-time data-driven decision-making process. Through BI, organizations can reduce business costs, optimize resources, and leverage customer insights.

With the right BI implementation partner like Emergys, organizations can plan and implement a sound business intelligence strategy. At Emergys, we have developed years of expertise in data-driven technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics.