How to use your business intelligence tool more effectively with monthly reporting
For executives who are interested in maximizing the value of their business intelligence, monthly reporting is a vital tool for tracking key metrics and other trends over time.
As you run your company, it’s important to have the most up-to-date information as possible so that you can make informed decisions.
Monthly reports help executives accomplish this by monitoring specific areas such as revenue and expenses, customer retention, and growth rates. By tracking these metrics over time, you can get a clear picture of what’s working and identify ways to improve your company’s performance.
What does monthly reporting look like with business intelligence? This article will give you more information on how you can streamline your monthly reporting with business intelligence.
What is business intelligence and why do you need it?
Business intelligence (BI) tools provide you with the data and information you need to make informed decisions. They pull together large quantities of data from a variety of sources, analyze it, and present the results in easy-to-understand formats such as dashboards and reports.
Tools like these can help you manage your business more effectively by giving you a detailed overview of key performance indicators (KPIs) and trends. They can give you an accurate picture of how your company is performing, including whether or not it’s meeting the goals you’ve set for it.
How often should you utilize business intelligence?
It’s best to leverage your BI tool on a regular basis in order to get the most out of it. You should aim for monthly business intelligence reports at the very least, but ideally you’ll take advantage of this information on a consistent basis.
While many companies utilize BI to make business decisions on a daily basis, this level of interaction with the data can be difficult for busy managers. It’s often better to check in less frequently to make sure you’ve got a good grasp of what’s going on at your company and then periodically review BI data when needed.
In other words, monthly reporting is key.
How to use BI more effectively with monthly reporting
Monthly reporting can help you manage your business by tracking key metrics and trends over time. This will help you see what’s working and where improvements can be made, so you can take full advantage of your BI tool.
For example, you might discover that the number of leads decreases during certain times of the month due to reduced advertising or lack of product availability. You can then use this information to better plan and allocate resources.
Monthly business intelligence reports can also reveal how successfully your company is meeting its goals and where you might need to make adjustments. You could find that the number of cases closed per month is lower than expected due to a lack of qualified leads or an under-qualified sales team.
As a result, you’ll be able to take steps to improve performance and get back on track.
The benefits of monthly reporting
There are a variety of benefits to using BI on a monthly basis. Some of the most notable ones include:
Accurate measurements: It’s much easier to spot trends and track progress when you have up-to-date information. Monthly reporting allows you to do just that by tracking key metrics and identifying where you should focus your efforts.
More informed leaders: Monthly reporting allows managers to make better, more informed decisions about the future of their business. Instead of trying to play catch-up with data that’s weeks or even months old, executives can get an accurate picture of what’s happening now so they can act accordingly.
Empower action: BI can be extremely empowering, giving you the information and insight you need to run your company with confidence. When you know what needs improvement and where opportunities lie, it’s much easier to take action and achieve success.
Greater transparency: Allowing everyone to access business data with the click of a button enables them to contribute ideas and make informed contributions. This fosters greater transparency, which can improve morale throughout your company.
Improved efficiency: Managing your business more efficiently is one thing you’ll accomplish by using BI on a regular basis. With monthly reporting, you’ll have up-to-date information so you can adjust your marketing campaigns or product marketing materials to be more effective.
Enhanced collaboration: BI makes it easier for employees, departments, and teams to work together by providing everyone with the same accurate data. This fosters greater transparency within the company, which usually results in improved productivity and efficiency.
Making business intelligence reports available on a monthly basis also helps employees better understand how each of their efforts contributes to the organization’s overall goals. This, in turn, encourages them to work more productively and efficiently as a team.
What types of metrics should you include in your monthly reports?
The exact metrics you include in your monthly reporting will depend on determining what’s most important to you and your company. Then, you can compare the data from month to month and year over year so you know for certain if a business is improving or declining.
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to measuring your key performance indicators (KPIs), here are a few metrics that are generally included in BI reports:
1. Income and expenses
Monthly income and expenses reports help managers know where money is coming from and how much they’re spending. This will allow you to plan accordingly, ensure your budgets are appropriate and measure the success of sales promotions or other initiatives designed to bring in more revenue.
2. Marketing campaign performance
Marketing campaigns can have a dramatic impact on a business’s growth and revenue. You can keep track of your campaigns by looking at metrics like email opens, visits to landing pages or specific product pages, actions taken on a website after clicking through from an ad, and the number of interactions with social media content.
3. New customer acquisition
One way you can measure your marketing team’s success is by tracking how many new customers you acquire each month. This will show if your efforts are bringing in new leads, providing you with information you can use to draw more people into your funnel and increase revenue.
4. Customer retention
If you’re hoping for long-term success, it’s crucial to focus on customer retention. Using monthly reporting, you can track what percentage of customers are staying with you and which ones are leaving. This will help you determine why customers are staying or going, and provide insight into the changes needed to retain more of your current clientele.
5. Employee activity
Each employee’s performance can be measured by the amount of work he or she produces. Monthly reporting is a great way to track how many hours each team member spends on specific tasks each month, which will allow you to ensure everyone is contributing effectively and efficiently.
6. Measuring marketing campaign ROI
A key part of your monthly reporting should include the results of your various marketing campaigns. This will allow you to determine which efforts are most successful and profitable, so you can build on what works and adjust or eliminate what doesn’t.
7. Website analytics
Tracking website performance is another important piece of monthly reporting. This will help you assess how people are interacting with your site, including their bounce rate (how quickly they leave your site after visiting), time spent on the site, and where they’re coming from.
8. Inventory levels
Inventory management can have a big impact on revenue since having too much of a product can lead to discounts or wasted money. Monthly reports can show if inventory is rising or falling, and they can alert you to any discrepancies that need to be addressed.
9. Workload distribution
Is your team working at full capacity? Are some employees unable to complete their assigned tasks without help from other people? If so, monthly reporting can identify shortfalls in your workload distribution, letting you know the exact amount of work each person has on their plate.
10. Recruitment needs
Finally, one of the most important metrics is how many new employees your company needs to hire in order to keep up with your growth. If you find yourself struggling to keep up with the demands at some point, this will let you know when you need to hire more people.
With this information, you’ll be able to see how your business is performing over time and identify areas where improvements are needed. And since it’s easy to get insights from BI software, monthly reporting can help you make the most of your data.
Conclusion
Business intelligence can be valuable for helping you monitor your business’s performance. However, it’s only effective if you have up-to-date information to draw on.
Monthly reporting can help you get the most out of your BI software by tracking key metrics and trends that can give you insight into what’s working in your company and what needs improvement.
When you have a clear picture of what’s going on with your company, you can make better decisions about how to grow and adapt while ensuring the success of your business. The key is to have the right data, so you need to know what you’re measuring and how you can use it most effectively.
Consider utilizing monthly reporting to get the information you need, so you can take your business to the next level.
