A sales variable is an essential metric for determining the success of a business. In this very competitive business world, gaining meaningful insights about customers, products, and sales data can speed up organizational growth. Companies must adapt their processes to stay competitive, which is where Business Intelligence tools come in handy.

All the functionalities provided by BI solutions give organizations the ability to analyze market demand for various products or services, along with market trends, which is especially helpful when making data-driven decisions for the future. A recent CIO Insight report revealed that 89% of respondents consider real-time data access through technological solutions to be a valuable business asset.

Enterprises from various industries, including retail and distribution, have faced difficulties in improving the efficiency of their sales departments, but by implementing new technologies, they have resolved their problems. Let’s see how BI solutions can successfully determine sales growth for companies.

Filtering Prospects and Data

Due to the considerable amount of data organizations create every day, it is becoming a real challenge to filter and select the most valuable information for sales departments. Keeping these challenges in mind, management teams from different industries and companies, whatever their stage of development, have started to implement Business Intelligence solutions to solve problems and create competitive advantages in their markets. There is a need to study the information automated software captures daily, and that can be easily achieved by using BI analytics that provides sophisticated graphics and charts from the selected metrics.

Why is this aspect so important? The answer is both simple and complex. Firstly, this is the first step towards creating a data-driven strategy for the sales department. Secondly, by pulling the right data from this vast number of petabytes of unstructured information, organizations can better understand market dynamics and can establish specific KPIs which will indicate, after a determined time, the success rate of each sales and marketing initiative.

Tracking Sales by Source

Leads serve as the foundation of every sales team, providing them with valuable information that could better direct their actions. Many businesses set up a way to invite inbound leads to their website. The issue here is that organizations need to drive web traffic in the first place to gather leads. There are multiple solutions for increasing traffic, including email, social media, special online events, and so on.

And even if companies can track each channel with a standard analytics system, a more sophisticated self-service business intelligence platform is capable of merging data from numerous sources, including a CRM account.

A BI platform dramatically simplifies the preparation, analysis, and visualizations that transform complex data into intelligence, and then into growth. Moreover, the sophisticated dashboards can be accessed from any location, enabling operational analytics to move onto any device, whenever the information is needed. By including sales metrics in the analytics program, organizations can unlock powerful insights that might drive future strategic decisions.

E-mail Campaigns

Emailing is an excellent way to reach a vast number of prospects at once. Many recipients might not be convinced to buy based only on one email, but businesses will at the very least receive calls for additional information, which is an essential step in the selling process because they get to know their prospects. Besides, by using BI tools, organizations can identify which subject lines are customers are more likely to click on, as well as the message type that generates most phone calls or responses.

Companies know that timing is an essential driver of potential leads, and BI could determine the perfect time of the day to send an email campaign. The sales teams are then more likely to interact with the prospects, whether they are making contact for the first time or they are following up on previous communication. Business Intelligence analytics also helps them identify the best approach for messages, which leads to higher success rates.

Overall, BI solutions help sales and marketing specialists learn more about their previous initiatives and avoid wasting time and resources on ineffective activities. That knowledge could influence the implementation of a new strategy that leads to increased revenue for the company.

Loyalty and Sales

As mentioned before, reaching new prospects is essential for creating business growth, but businesses should also focus on their current customers. With Business Intelligence solutions, it is possible to create a unique and consolidated database of all customer information, as well as the interactions they have had with the company in the past, no matter the channel (website, social media, email).

At first glance, this kind of database is merely a way of monitoring sales, but it could provide essential intelligence about customer trends and behavioral patterns. Once the sales team knows the consumer’s needs, various initiatives can be implemented to fill in the gaps. This is a win-win situation. A satisfied customer will always return and increase your market value through word of mouth.

Business Intelligence solutions are essential for every organization that aims to achieve higher goals and increase sales. By fully understanding the consumer and business data, the decision-making team can establish follow-on objectives, determine relevant KPIs, and choose the best direction for the development of the company. However, organizations should also take note that selecting the most suitable BI tool is very important. In this situation, customized Business Intelligence solutions are the right choice, because their development is tuned to the needs of each business, based on which issues need addressing quickest.