Goals of data analysis. Business Intelligence (BI) systems for business analysis Some of the benefits of using BI solutions
Small businesses in the CIS countries do not yet use data analysis for business development, determining correlations, searching for hidden patterns: entrepreneurs make do with reports from marketers and accountants. The leaders of small and partially medium-sized enterprises rely more on their intuition than on analysis. But at the same time, analytics has a huge potential: it helps to reduce costs and increase profits, make decisions faster and more objectively, optimize processes, better understand customers and improve the product.
An accountant will not replace an analyst
Small business executives often assume that marketing and accountant reports are a fairly accurate representation of a company's performance. But on the basis of dry statistics, it is very difficult to make a decision, and an error in calculations without specialized education is inevitable.
Case 1. Post-analysis of promotional campaigns. By the New Year, the entrepreneur announced a promotion in which certain goods were offered at a discount. After evaluating the revenue for the New Year period, he saw how sales increased, and was delighted with his resourcefulness. But let's take into account all the factors:
- Sales are especially strong on Friday, the day when revenue is maximum - this is a weekly trend.
- Compared to sales growth that usually occurs under New Year, then the gain is not so great.
- If you filter out promotional items, it turns out that sales figures have deteriorated.
Case 2. Study of turnover. The women's clothing store has difficulties with logistics: the goods in some warehouses are in short supply, and in others they lie for months. How to determine, without analyzing sales, how many trousers to bring to one region, and how many coats to send to another, while getting the maximum profit? To do this, you need to calculate the turnover, the ratio of the speed of sales and the average inventory for a certain period. To put it simply, the turnover is an indicator of how many days the store will sell the goods, how quickly the average stock is sold, how quickly the goods pay off. It is economically unprofitable to store large reserves, as this freezes capital and slows down development. If the stock is reduced, there may be a shortage, and the company will again lose profits. Where to find the golden mean, the ratio at which the product does not stagnate in the warehouse, and at the same time you can give a certain guarantee that the customer will find the right unit in the store? To do this, the analyst should help you determine:
- desired turnover,
- turnover dynamics.
When settling with suppliers with a delay, you must also calculate the ratio of the credit line and turnover. Turnover in days = Average inventory* number of days / Turnover for this period.
Calculation of stock balances and total turnover shopping helps you understand where you need to move part of the goods. It is also worth calculating what turnover each unit of the assortment has in order to make a decision: markdown with reduced demand, re-order with increased demand, relocation to another warehouse. By category, you can develop a report on turnover in this form. It can be seen that T-shirts and jumpers are sold faster, but coats are sold for a long time. Can an ordinary accountant do this job? We doubt. At the same time, regular calculation of turnover and application of the results can increase profits by 8-10%.
In what areas is data analysis applicable?
- Sales. It is important to understand why sales are going well (or badly), what are the dynamics. To solve this problem, it is necessary to investigate the factors influencing profit and revenue - for example, to analyze the length of the receipt and revenue per customer. Such factors can be investigated by groups of goods, seasons, stores. You can identify sales peaks and pits by analyzing returns, cancellations, and other transactions.
- Finance. Monitoring of indicators is necessary for any financier to monitor cash flow and distribute assets across various business areas. This helps to evaluate the effectiveness of taxation and other parameters.
- Marketing. Any marketing company needs forecasts and post-analysis of stocks. At the stage of developing the idea, it is necessary to determine the groups of goods (control and target) for which we are creating an offer. This is also a job for a data analyst, since an ordinary marketer does not have the necessary tools and skills for good analysis. For example, if for the control group the amount of revenue and the number of customers are the same as the target group, the promotion did not work. To determine this, interval analysis is needed.
- Control. Having leadership qualities is not enough for a company leader. Quantitative estimates in any case, the work of personnel is necessary for the competent management of the enterprise. It is important to understand the effectiveness of wage fund management, the ratio of wages and sales, as well as the efficiency of processes - for example, the workload of cash desks or the employment of loaders during the day. This helps to properly distribute working time.
- Web analysis. The site needs to be properly promoted so that it becomes a sales channel, and this requires the right promotion strategy. This is where web analysis can help you. How to apply it? To study the behavior, age, gender and other characteristics of customers, activity on certain pages, clicks, traffic channel, mailing performance, etc. This will help improve the business and website.
- Assortment management. ABC analysis is essential for assortment management. The analyst must distribute the product by characteristics in order to conduct this type of analysis and understand which product is the most profitable, which is the basis, and which should be discarded. To understand the stability of sales, it is good to conduct an XYZ analysis.
- Logistics. More understanding about procurement, goods, their storage and availability will be given by the study of logistics indicators. Losses and needs of goods, inventory is also important to understand for successful management business.
These examples show how powerful data analysis is, even for small businesses. An experienced director will increase the company's profits and benefit from the smallest data, using data analysis correctly, and visual reports will greatly simplify the work of a manager.
The main goal of any data analysis is to search and discover patterns in the amount of data. In business analysis, this goal becomes even broader. It is important for any leader not only to identify patterns, but also to find their cause. Knowing the cause will allow in the future to influence the business and makes it possible to predict the results of a particular action.
Goals of data analysis for the company
When it comes to business, the goal of every company is to win competition. So data analysis is your main advantage. He will help you:
- Reduce company costs
- Increase revenue
- Reduce the time to complete business processes (find out the weak point and optimize it)
- Increase the effectiveness of the company's business processes
- Fulfill any other goals aimed at improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the company.
So, victory over competitors is in your hands. Don't rely on intuition. Analyze!
Data analysis goals for departments, divisions, products
Oddly enough, but the goals listed above are completely suitable for analyzing the activities of departments, product analysis or an advertising campaign.
The goal of any data analysis at any level is to identify a pattern and use this knowledge to improve the quality of a product or the work of a company or department.
Who needs data analysis?
Everyone. Indeed, any company, from any field of activity, any department and any product!
In what areas can data analysis be applied?
- Manufacturing (construction, oil and gas, metallurgy, etc.)
- Retail
- E-commerce
- Services
- And many others
Which departments can be analyzed within the company?
- Accounting and finance
- Marketing
- Advertising
- Administration
- And others.
Indeed, companies from any field, any departments within the company, any areas of activity can, should and it is important to analyze.
How BI analysis systems can help
BI analysis systems, automated systems analytics, big data for big data analysis, are software solutions that already have built-in functionality for processing data, preparing it for analysis, analysis itself and, most importantly, for visualizing analysis results.
Not every company has an analyst department, or at least a developer who will maintain the analytical system and databases. In this case, such BI-analysis systems come to the rescue.
There are more than 300 solutions on the market today. Our company settled on the Tableau solution:
- In 2018, Tableau became the leader of Gartner's research among BI solutions for the 6th time.
- Tableau is easy to learn (and our workshops prove it)
- No developer knowledge or statistics required to get started with Tableau
At the same time, companies that already work with Tableau say that reports that used to be collected in Excel in 6-8 hours now take no more than 15 minutes.
Don't believe? Try it yourself - download the trial version of Tableau and get tutorials on working with the program:
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