Posts Tagged ‘Business Intelligence’

The most common starting point for many organizations is reporting.  Many organizations need to improve reporting whether this means speeding it up, making it more flexible or reducing the reliance on internal or external IT experts to provide this information.  This is especially important when looking to add Business Intelligence to Microsoft CRM.

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here. 

Last month, we talked about CRM Business Intelligence and since there was so much interest in that topic, let's go a bit deeper.

So many companies do a great job of capturing information in their Microsoft CRM system but are awful at being able to use that information to make better decisions faster.

What about you?

Are you quickly able to quickly segment your data base to execute a new marketing campaign so that it is targetted just those customers who have purchased a certain product in the last 18 months?

Are you able to identify the characteristics of your most profitable customers such as

* SIC Code
* Zipcode
* Company Size
* Position of purchaser
* Is company in growth mode or decline

* Etc

so that you can intelligently purchase a new list of prospects?

Do you know what the average lifetime value of a customer is along with the margin rate?

Do you understand the behavior of a customer who is growing discontent with your product or service BEFORE they stop being a customer?

If you use your website to either conduct sales or generate leads do you know things like:

* How many unique website visitors it takes to generate a lead
* How many leads it takes to set an appointment
* How many appointments it takes to generate a sale?

The point is to be able to successfully grow your business you must know your numbers (commonly called metrics).  If you do, then you are in a position to make better decisions faster.

To help you get started, we are offering you a free 60 minute Business Intelligence Quickstart consultation.  This offer is valued at $250, is limited to the first 8 companies that request it and expires on July 8, 2011.  Sorry, but this offer is limited to US based companies who have over 25 employees.

If you would like to take advantage of this offer, please contact us at 858-431-1820 or by email at info@rbdata.com and we will set up a mutually convenient time for your free Business Intelligence Quickstart consulation.

One of the most important topics in Customer Relationship Management or CRM that can have the biggest impact on your business is known by several names.  Some people call it "Business Intelligence" or "BI".  Some people call it "Analytics" and some people just call it "Dashboards".

Microsoft is referring to it as "Actionable Intelligence". 

But what is it and why should you care?

For many organizations, perhaps I should say most, putting information into their CRM system is like putting it into a black hole.  You know it is there but it can be tough to find.  More importantly, it can be darn near impossible to use that information to quickly make sound business decisions.

Sound familiar?

Virtually all businesses can be made more profitable if the management team know their essential 5 to 10 core business drivers, or metrics, and can instantly access that information.

These core business drivers vary business to business but some common ones include:

Year to date sales compared to this time last year.

Sales pipeline opportunities with an 80% likelihood of closing in the next 30, 60 & 90 days broken down by region and sales rep.

Sales quota versus actual sales broken down by region and sales rep.

Which marketing activities have been successful and which have duds with hard numbers to back up those findings?

Which marketing activities have produced the highest number of closeable leads and what was the cost of per lead?

What is the average lifetime value of a customer?

Number of open support tickets.

Number of open support tickets that have been unresolved for over 3 days.

What are the top 5 support issues along with the solutions?

Again the key is to know what your key business metrics are and to be able to quickly access that information.

The most common starting point is reporting.  Many organizations need to improve reporting whether this means speeding it up, making it more flexible or reducing the reliance on internal or external IT experts to provide this information.

This white paper describes a step by step approach to building business intelligence (BI) capabilities starting with reports and ending with a combination of dashboards, what if analysis as well as automatic alerts when certain key conditions arise.

To read this white paper click here.