Theory: Business Intelligence

What data do we need? The self-assessment/reflection  at the start of this bitesize should give you an indication of needs . Now that you know what needs your BI strategy will ultimately solve, you can focus on the data itself. What data do you need in order to solve the problems you’ve identified? Compare this to the data you actually have at hand. Like most companies, you’re probably collecting data that you don’t need. Conversely, you might find that you’re lacking crucial data that will allow you to put your BI strategy into action. For instance, you might not be tracking repeat purchases in your stores, but building customer loyalty is an important objective for you.

On a more technical level, you can evaluate your existing data sources: where is your data coming from? Do you keep it on premise or in a cloud-based data warehouse? Is it stored, historical data or streaming data? Knowing the types of data you need to leverage will allow you to choose the right tool to centralize all your data (but more on this later) and to define your data architecture.

Ultimately, you’ll need to be able to identify the key metrics that will be especially important for you to monitor. Having a handful of strategic KPIs is an important milestone for anyone trying to build a BI strategy. These KPIs can then be broken down into more specific metrics. Pinpointing these metrics is the first step in building effacing BI reports that will allow you to empower users across your organization with powerful insights

A BI strategy is your blueprint for success. You’ll need to decide how data is used, gather key roles, and define responsibilities in the initial phases. It may sound simple at a high level; however, starting with business goals is your key to success. 

Here’s how to create a BI strategy from the ground up:

1. Know your business strategy and goals.
2. Identify key stakeholders.
3. Choose a sponsor from your key stakeholders.
4. Choose your BI platform and tools. 
5. Create a BI team.
6. Define your scope.
7. Prepare your data infrastructure.
8. Define your goals and roadmap.

Main steps for successful BI project implementation:

• Defining business requirements by focusing on business problems and clearly defined business strategy
• Identifying and proper mapping of data sources
• Selecting the most suitable BI tool
• Extracting and analysing the collected information
• Implementing knowledge into decision making

Benefits from using BI software

• BI Software provides tourism entities with:
• Quick answers to critical business questions
• Insights on real-time business performance
• More accurate customer profiles
• Identification and analysis of areas to cut costs and for budget allocation.
• Insights into trends
• Business information is presented in a format that is easier to understand.

Typical ways of using BI

• Analysing customer behaviour, buying patterns and sales trends
• Measuring, tracking and predicting sales and financial performance
• Budgeting and financial planning and forecasting
• Tracking the performance of marketing campaigns
• Optimising processes and operational performance
• Improving delivery and supply chain effectiveness
• Web and e-commerce data analytics
• Customer relationship management
• Risk analysis
• Strategic value driver analysis

How to choose a BI solution

When selecting a BI solution for your tourism business, consider the following factors:

• Ease of learning and use
• Capabilities for creating appealing visual representations of data.
• Availability of built-in analytics function for studying profitability and trends
• Compare BI tools in order to know which one could fit best to your business:
• There are many BI options for SMEs with limited budgets.
• Read BI tool reviews from similar SMEs and compare BI tools in terms of price, features, and ease of use.