Business Intelligence
What is Business Intelligence?
If you google you will probably get many answers which are probably going to be more less the same once you have briefly scrolled through the answer.
It is simply collection and analysis of data and in this context in relation to sales and marketing. There are probably also many analytical tools from school books available like PEST and SWOT but let us keep it simple.
· A business needs to define its competitors or something that comes close
· What are competitor strong points
· What are competitor weak points
· Quality/Price mapping
· Service which usually a mix between quality and speed
Naturally, some data are easily available online but it is a must to get out there an interview some current/potential customers and often what they say comes a surprise. For better or for worse.
So that sounds very simple and it is. So why is this relevant?
It is as it is one of those things that is often being neglected. Probably for one or two reasons. In smaller enterprises there is no dedicated marketing team and there are too many fires to be put out. In bigger companies with a marketing department then I am sure they all know what it is and how to set up a process to do it but they may tied down by too many projects, FTE counts etc.
Once this data has been collected to some kind of level you can begin analyze walking through some of the simple steps above. The business intelligence analysis and outcome will be the prerequisite your marketing strategy!