After a certain point, a business intelligence tool becomes a must-have for your business. Without it, you may have lots of data but not enough actionable information, or you may simply not be able to make heads or tails of specific segments of data to improve your marketing, customer support, or inventory orders. Here are some key signs that it’s time to invest in an inventory control business intelligence tool.
The size of your data has outgrown spreadsheets
Excel can handle huge chunks of data, but after a point, it no longer does it effectively, especially if your hardware isn’t last-gen. If you notice your inventory team spending a lot of time trying to handle endless spreadsheets instead of doing more important things, you want to start looking for a business intelligence small business app.
You don’t have real time data when you need it
If you feel you don’t have enough inventory and sales data on hand to make more informed decisions about what suppliers to sign agreements with or what products to focus on in your marketing campaigns, you clearly have a problem. One of the great benefits of an inventory control business intelligence app is that it can provide data in real time, just when you need it, so that you can anchor important ordering and marketing decision in a sea of facts. At the pace at which businesses are evolving these days, real time data and its accuracy can make the difference between successful and unsuccessful companies.
You are still relying on your IT team for reports
Without a proper business intelligence system in place, you have to count on your tech-savy employees to generate business reports with charts and graphs simply because other teams/departments don’t have the technical expertise necessary to create them. This dependency on your IT team not only slows them down, increasing their workload, but also creates the awkward scenario in which a lot of crucial company data is gathered in one department only.
You can’t make out trends or customer behavior from your data
Raw customer, website, and inventory data isn’t of great use if it isn’t interpreted and presented in a clear format. That’s precisely what a business intelligence and sales forecasting app can do, helping you understand both your customers and sales and inventory trends. These in turn enable you to deliver to your customers what they need, when they need it, as well as to anticipate demand.
Once the domain of enterprises, business intelligence tools are now within easy reach of small, local companies, having become powerfully scalable and flexible in their deployment, so that you really have no excuse for not using them.
DataQlick is a great example of an easy to use, cloud-based, mobile-friendly inventory control business intelligence tool with powerful inventory tracking and sales forecasting tools. Learn more about it.
