Understanding the Benefits of Data Mining
August 19th, 2020 by Ross Lasley
Every business leader is trying to make better decisions for their organization. It does not matter how good of a business person or leader, you are if you are making decisions from incomplete data. Today we have an overload of data. Most businesses have 4, 5, or 6 plus silos of information and data. These systems rarely communicate and are challenging to match up that data to get the entire picture of where your business is. That is where data mining and business intelligence come in. These tools help integrate that data and show you the complete view of the current status so that you can make better decisions.
Here are some of the areas that data mining and business intelligence can illuminate
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Your workforce
You can track all kinds of metrics to find out who your most productive employees are. Find out which of your salespeople close with the highest margins or which AP clerk processes the most invoices with fewest errors, along with many others. Once you have this information, you can then find out what methods they are using and use that to help improve the rest of your workforce.
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Inventory control
Inventory can be one of the company’s most significant investments. That inventory can also take up quite a bit of space. Many do not have much insight into that inventory. Business intelligence reporting can help you find out what items sit on the shelf the longest. There may be one item more desirable in the winter but is not in the summer. This insight can help significantly improve cashflow while also saving space in your warehouse.
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Customers
Most companies can tell you who their biggest customers are, but can they tell you who is their most profitable? Can they tell you which companies pay on time and which are regularly late? More information can tell you where to focus your attention. If one of your biggest customers always pays late and is not profitable, you might want to focus your time elsewhere or figure why those two things are happening. This knowledge allows you to tackle those problems.
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Sales
Sales are the engine of most companies. It is essential to have data to back up your sales activities. Conventional processes you have implemented may not work anymore. You want to be able to show your sales teams what activities drive the sales cycle and create the most opportunities. You need to be able to tell your sales teams what the most profitable products are and how to push them. These are vital to many companies’ success.
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Forecasting
The future is not always predictable, but you can improve the ability to understand where it may be going. Organizations need to be able to pull on past performances to understand what the results were from those activities. Being able to have a holistic look at your business will allow you to better position yourself for the future.
Having a complete picture of the health of your business is one of the most important things a leader can have. Every business is inundated with information, documents, and data today. It is almost impossible for business leaders to be able to sift through all that information effectively. Even if they can build a report one time, they will have to go through and organize that report again every time they want that information. That is not an effective way for business leaders to spend their time. That is why data mining and business intelligence are critical to every company today.
Posted in: Business Technology