If big data is inescapable, then Business Intelligence (BI) is an inevitable aspect of doing business in the contemporary landscape. What’s not inevitable, what actually requires intelligent intervention, is using the back-end data points provided by BI to power front-end analysis. Because Business Analytics (BA) leads to critical risk management, growth, and improvement, it is crucial to get it right.

A robust business intelligence platform can and should manage all the data you need to assess key performance indicators (KPIs) and drive successful BA. Here’s how BI tools can act as the front-end interface for big data systems to serve your analytical needs.

Anticipating Data Source Needs

If you’re looking to business analytics to secure a competitive advantage or institutional strength (aren’t we all?), you need a data interface built around your KPIs. These are the figures that show you how well you are achieving your mission. How many clicks, how many visits, how many purchases, how many constituents served. Your BI platform (or platforms) should be chosen based on its ability to report data from every salient source, from sensors to form submissions to social media.

Whatever your needs – such as enterprise resource planning or customer/constituent relationship management software – there are multiple BI solutions to explore. A trained advisor can help you articulate your KPIs and anticipate which sources will supply you with clean back-end data around those indicators. This information then helps you determine which BI solutions can help visualize that data in a usable way on the front end for a range of users.

Making Data Readily Available to All Your Users

Good data can only do good for your organization if it gets into the hands of the people who need it. Regardless of your core functions, the people who manage your business processes, and plan and implement new initiatives, need appropriate business intelligence at the appropriate time.

A highly effective BI platform – whether purpose-built or pre-packaged – delivers vital information across a spectrum of disciplines. Further, it provides data in a way that users throughout your organization (even those without specialized IT knowledge) can understand. These users then spend less time processing data and more time using that information to fuel more intellectually challenging tasks. By being intentional about your back-end processes, you can better facilitate front-end tasks and decisions.

For example, Momentum recently assisted a statewide environmental agency, performing a detailed review of existing processes around document submittal and review. This review led to a host of strategic shifts designed to expedite data processing and reporting. These shifts automated workflows around source testing process documentation, enhanced access to current and historical source testing process documentation, and a web-based user interface that allows manual and automated routing of pending transactions to the appropriate staff and managers while providing secured enterprise access for central and remote offices.

Enhancing Understanding Through Data Visualization

Finally, it is not enough to get good data to your users. That data must be digestible. While business intelligence has been around as a concept for over a century, modern BI tools have improved on that idea, making big data more understandable to more people. Instead of a stream of figures that requires a specialist to interpret, self-service tools have brought sophisticated user interface and user experience approaches to information presentation. When your data is easier to see and understand, it’s easier to make critical organizational choices.

Improved access to back-end data, including better visualization, helps expedite BA. With good BA, you can better assess data around KPIs and identify root causes of current circumstances. Then, your organization can use the insights gathered to anticipate how your business would respond if you were to adjust certain conditions. Business Analytics is a potent tool for using big data to design institutional growth and improvement. A successful BI platform will provide a better front-end interface from which to launch successful BA.

Big Data, Big Platform, Big Results

Big data isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s only likely to get bigger. The right business intelligence platform is critical to translating raw, back-end data into actionable insights. Assessing the many BI tools on the market to find a platform that provides the best front-end interface for your users can seem overwhelming, however. Momentum consultants take a technology-agnostic approach to BI solutions. Working with whatever software and platforms you are already using, we help you identify the best tools for tracking your KPIs and deploying them in the service of organizational growth.

Want to find out more about using your business intelligence platform as a front-end interface to meet your organization’s goals? Contact Momentum today.