Technology is always pushing forward and you need to keep up with the trends. Your IBM Cognos implementation partner helped you get up to speed but now you have to look forward to upcoming changes. Here are some coming trends in business intelligence so that you know what to look out for.
Managing Your Data Quality
Businesses are collecting data at an incredible rate nowadays. This can be a good thing and a bad thing for your company. All the data that you can collect can be put to good use in predicting customer behavior and more. But along with the useful information, there is a lot of trash data. This is where managing data quality comes in. Your team has to go through your data collection process so that you only get the data that you need. Some options for ensuring that you only get good data is automated software that goes through most of what you collect while your experts analyze the data that gets passed on. Proper data quality management ensures that your people are not wasting their time and can deliver analysis fast.
Increasing Use of Predictive Analytics
One of the main uses of business intelligence is to look at the data and pinpoint current trends so that a business would be able to react properly. Now, the move is towards using the analysis to predict what trends customers are moving towards. The problem was that this sort of analysis was quite expensive. It needed a lot of data and processing power. With the increased data collection and advances in data processing, more and more businesses are using business intelligence to predict what customers want to buy and experience.
Collaborating for Better Results
There is an increased rise in collaborative business intelligence. This is the use of various collaboration tools like messaging apps and shared work platforms that allow for faster information sharing. Instead of a single person working on data analysis on their own, you can have various people working on it without any problems. The result is that the results are more organic and have the weight of several people behind them. The great thing about collaborative efforts is that it is less about tech and more about cooperation. You don’t need IT input beyond ensuring that everyone can communicate well with each other,
Using Machine Learning as a Service
A lot of business intelligence work requires computer analysis. Crunching all the numbers can be tedious when done by humans and there is a chance for mistakes. To make it better, analysts use machine learning so that the system can learn from the data and evolve to handle it better. This is complex and difficult for smaller companies that do not have a dedicated team for it. But that is becoming a thing of the past as many online platforms are offering Machine Learn as a Service. This allows companies to rent out these platforms so that they can have their analysis done. With better access, more companies will have access to better business intelligence.
Increasing Important of Data-driven Decisions
With all the data that businesses are collecting, they have more of them to work with. This also means that many people in various business positions will be able to make decisions based on information. This year will see many businesses not deciding unless they have data backing it up. Your company should follow that example since your competitors will always make better decisions if you base your choices on incomplete or false data. This dependence on data will see easier access to it as well as improved analytics.
More Security
Online security becomes even more important as you do your best to prevent thieves from stealing your data. Major data breaches have hit some of the biggest companies in the world including Apple and JP Morgan. Don’t think that you are a small company that you won’t experience the attention of data thieves. With increased data collection, cybercriminals will have more targets to aim for. You should be beefing up your security in several ways. For one, you can hire security experts to look over your setup and make recommendations. You can also ask them to start training your people so that they more aware of security threats.
Business intelligence is a big help to any company. If you want to stay competitive, you need to ensure that your team and software are up-to-date or know of what changes they should be making in the future.
