What Is Business Intelligence and How Can It Benefit Your Business
Businesses everywhere benefit from collecting the right data that drive strategic decision-making. This is where business intelligence comes in. The technology plays a significant role in the success of many working professionals across multiple industries. Business intelligence in sales, specifically, can refer to the use of software, services, and technologies to analyze data and transform it into actionable insights that help businesses make informed decisions about their prospects, customers and competitors.
Business Intelligence Defined
According to Gartner, a leading research and advisory company, business intelligence is "an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance."
Business intelligence is used across industries and departments, such as finance, marketing, operations, and sales, to help organizations better understand their audience, from business customers to competitors.
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Using Business Intelligence to Drive Your Decisions
Businesses gain the insights they need to make data-driven decisions by using business intelligence. Here are a few key ways that the pipeline between business intelligence and sales can help improve your decision-making and revenue.
Identify trends and patterns
Identifying trends and patterns in sales data that may not be immediately apparent is just one benefit of business intelligence. For example, by analyzing sales data over time, businesses can identify seasonal trends in sales or changes in customer behavior. This information can help businesses adjust their sales strategies accordingly and make more informed decisions about their inventory and staffing levels.
Measure sales performance
Businesses can also use the technology to measure the performance of their sales team and individual sales reps. By tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as the number of leads generated, the number of sales closed, and the average order value, businesses can identify areas where their sales team is excelling and areas where they need to improve. This information can be used to develop training programs and coaching strategies to help sales reps reach their full potential.
Optimize sales processes
Want to optimize your sales processes by identifying bottlenecks and areas for improvement? Business intelligence can help with that. By analyzing the sales pipeline, businesses can identify where leads are dropping off and make changes to improve conversion rates. Analyzing customer data allows businesses to identify opportunities to cross-sell or upsell products and services.
Forecast sales
With business intelligence, companies can forecast sales by analyzing historical sales data and identifying trends and patterns. This information can be used to develop sales forecasts for the future, which can help companies plan their inventory levels, staffing needs, and marketing strategies. Accurate sales forecasts can also help businesses make better decisions about both investment and expansion.
Use Cases for Business Intelligence
Account-based marketing: Identify high-value accounts and target them with personalized messaging and content that resonates with their specific pain points and needs.
Prospect profiling: Help salespeople gain deeper insights into their prospects by analyzing their company size, industry, budget, and other relevant data points. This information can be used to tailor the sales pitch to their specific needs.
Lead scoring: Score leads based on their engagement with the company's content and website, enabling salespeople to prioritize leads that are most likely to convert.
Competitor analysis: Analyzing the competition's sales strategies and product offerings can help salespeople identify gaps in the market and differentiate their products from competitors.
Performance tracking: Track and analyze the performance of sales efforts, such as lead generation, conversion rates, and revenue. This data can be used to make informed decisions about future sales strategies and tactics.
Customer segmentation: Segment customers based on their needs, preferences, and buying behavior. This data can be used to create targeted messaging and content that resonates with specific customer segments.
Sales forecasting: Forecast sales performance and identify trends that impact sales, such as seasonality, market trends, and customer behavior.
Overall, business intelligence tools can provide valuable insights to help B2B SaaS salespeople improve their sales strategies, identify new opportunities, and close more deals.
Business Intelligence Tools for Sales
There are many business intelligence tools and technologies available that can help businesses improve their sales processes. Sales Intelligence is a type of business intelligence sales professionals use during their sales cycles. Owler is an example of this, as the data contained within the platform’s database is used to advance sellers’ knowledge of prospects and their industries.
84% of B2B decision-makers start their buying process with a referral, while it was found that peer recommendations influence more than 90% of all B2B buying decisions.
These are just a few statistics highlighting the opportunities sales intelligence offers to drive revenue growth and engage with potential buyers by leveraging your existing customer relationships to build trust with prospects.
They also demonstrate how sales intelligence can help address some of the common challenges faced by B2B sales teams. As sales intelligence tools continue to evolve and become more widely adopted, you can expect to see even more impressive results in sales performance and business growth.
Here are a few common tools used in business intelligence sales:
Data visualization tools
Data visualization tools, such as Tableau and Power BI, allow businesses to create visual representations of their sales data. This makes it easier to identify trends and patterns and communicate insights to stakeholders.
CRM systems
CRM systems, such as Salesforce and Hubspot, are designed to help businesses manage their customer relationships. By tracking customer interactions and sales activities, CRM systems can help businesses identify opportunities for cross-selling and upselling.
Sales intelligence tools
Sales intelligence tools, such as Owler Max, are designed specifically for sales teams. These tools can help businesses track company data and competitor information.
Implementing Business Intelligence Into Your Workflow
Business intelligence can be implemented into a sales professional's workflow in a simple and easy-to-understand way.
Define Your Goals
What do you want to achieve? The first step to implementing business intelligence into your sales workflow is to define your goals. This could be anything from increasing sales revenue to improving customer satisfaction. Once you have defined your goals, you can start collecting data to help you achieve them.
Collect Data
The next step is to collect data. This could be data about your customers, your products, your competitors, or any other relevant data that can help you make informed decisions. There are many different sources of data, including internal databases, social media platforms, and third-party data providers.
Analyze Data
Once you have collected your data, the next step is to analyze it. This involves using business intelligence tools to identify patterns, trends, and insights to help you make better decisions. For example, you might use data visualization tools to create charts and graphs that show sales trends over time.
Make Decisions
The final step is to use the insights gained from your analysis to make decisions. For example, if you identify a particular product that is selling well, you might decide to focus your sales efforts on that product. Or, if you identify a customer segment that is not responding well to your marketing efforts, you might adjust your messaging to better target that segment.
Incorporating business intelligence into your sales workflow can be a powerful way to achieve your goals. By collecting and analyzing data, you can gain valuable insights that can help you drive business growth.
Using Business Intelligence in the HR Profession
Business intelligence can help HR professionals to attract top talent, build strong relationships with candidates, and improve their recruiting strategies. By utilizing these tools, HR professionals can become more efficient, effective, and data-driven, enabling them to make better decisions and achieve better results for their organizations.
Better candidate targeting: Sales intelligence tools can help you identify the most suitable candidates for your open positions based on their skills, experience, and career goals. Save time and resources by focusing your efforts on the candidates that are most likely to be a good fit.
Improved candidate engagement: Better understand your candidates' interests and needs, enabling you to create personalized and engaging communication strategies that resonate with them. Personalized messaging has the potential to increase the likelihood of attracting top talent and building strong relationships with candidates.
More effective recruiting strategies: By leveraging sales intelligence, you can gain valuable insights into market trends and competitor activity, enabling you to tailor your recruiting strategies and stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Increased efficiency: Some tools even help automate many of the manual tasks associated with recruiting, such as sourcing candidates, screening resumes, and scheduling interviews. These tools free up time for HR professionals to focus on more strategic tasks, such as building relationships with candidates and developing effective recruiting strategies.
Better data-driven results: By using sales intelligence data, you can make more informed decisions about your recruiting strategies, enabling you to optimize your processes and achieve better results.
Better targeting: Sales intelligence tools help you identify the most suitable prospects for your products or services based on their industry, size, location, and other relevant factors. These insights allow you to focus your marketing efforts on the prospects that are most likely to convert, leading to better ROI and more efficient use of resources.
Improved lead nurturing: Improve your understanding of prospects' interests, pain points, and behavior with sales intelligence. As you create more personalized and relevant content that resonates with them, you will increase the effectiveness of your lead nurturing campaigns and improve the overall customer experience.
How Marketing Professionals Can Utilize Business Intelligence
Just as a salesperson might use business intelligence for sales or an HR professional for recruitment, those in the marketing field have a host of uses for the technology within their field.
More effective marketing strategies: Leveraging sales intelligence means you can gain valuable insights into market trends and competitor activity to tailor your marketing strategies and stand out in a crowded marketplace. Differentiate your brand and drive more conversion with this strategy.
Increased efficiency: Sales intelligence tools help automate many of the manual tasks associated with lead generation and lead nurturing, such as data entry and lead scoring. More time for marketing professionals to focus on strategic tasks, such as developing campaigns and analyzing data is a positive outcome of using sales intelligence.
Better data-driven decision-making: You can make more informed decisions about your marketing strategies, enabling you to optimize your processes and achieve better results using business intelligence.
Content Optimization: As B2B SaaS marketers use business intelligence tools to analyze how their content is performing, what types of content are resonating with their audience, and where their content is shared, they will create more compelling content.
Customer Feedback Analysis: Business intelligence can help B2B SaaS marketers analyze customer feedback from various sources such as social media, customer service interactions, and surveys. Keeping an eye on this information enables marketers to identify areas for improvement and address customer concerns in a timely manner.
SEO Analysis: B2B SaaS marketers can use business intelligence tools to analyze their website's search engine performance, track keyword rankings, and identify opportunities to improve their SEO strategy. As a result, marketers could see more organic traffic to their websites and increase their visibility in search engine results.
Attribution Analysis: By using business intelligence tools to analyze the customer journey, B2B SaaS marketers can determine which marketing channels are contributing the most to conversions and revenue, helping them optimize their marketing mix and allocate their budget more effectively.
Brand Monitoring: Business intelligence tools such as Meltwater can help B2B SaaS marketers monitor their brand reputation by analyzing online reviews, social media mentions, and other forms of feedback to identify potential issues and respond in a timely and effective manner.
Forecasting Market Trends: B2B SaaS marketers can use business intelligence tools to track market trends, identify emerging opportunities, and anticipate shifts in the competitive landscape to stay ahead of the curve and adapt their marketing strategy accordingly.
Sales intelligence enables marketing professionals to improve their targeting, lead nurturing, and marketing strategies. By leveraging these tools, marketing professionals will become more efficient, effective, and data-driven, enabling them to make better decisions and achieve better results for their organizations. Learn how industry professionals use Owler to fill their pipelines and close deals.