The Basics of BI Reporting for Distributors
What Is BI Reporting and Why Do You Need It?
Digital transformation and the advancement of technology in the distribution industry now allow companies to have access to more information about business processes and their customers than ever before. However, taking all of that historical data and boiling it down to useful insights can pose a challenge. Business Intelligence (BI) and, more specifically, BI reporting automate the organization of information and make it easy for users to thoroughly analyze data with little to no additional effort.
Business intelligence reports are key for businesses that want to understand their customers better, improve management, uncover trends, and overall improve the health of the distributorship. They unlock a level of revenue and operational improvement that was not previously possible without time-consuming manual data analytics. Here are 5 big business challenges solved by business intelligence software.
What is BI Reporting?
Business Intelligence reporting is the collection, organization, and analysis of relevant data for a specific audience. For most distributors, that means taking your most important system—your ERP and integrating a BI tool with it. BI reporting tools then take your data and present it in an understandable, actionable way for defined audiences. That means data visualization is presented in charts, graphs, etc., which make it clear what you need to do to continue growing your business or sales at any given time.
With a BI reporting process, your data analysis is removed from isolation in siloes and becomes the most valuable resource for your team. Sales reps can see account activities, so they know where to devote their time each and every day. Account managers can see deep analysis of customer transactions and behavior with data visualization, allowing them to see trends and take better care of customers. Business leaders can get a 360-degree view of the distributorship so they can focus their time on specific actions that will grow the business. These are just a few capabilities of BI reporting tools.
The short answer is that your gut decisions, the gut decisions of your sales team, and the gut decisions of everyone at your business could be (and most likely is) costing you money. Decisions based on your data analytics account for 20% gains in revenue growth. These days, technology and data-driven decision-making are what separate one growing distributor from a dying one.
Business intelligence reports can create significant competitive advantages over businesses that are failing to change with the times.
Advantages of BI Reporting Tools:
- Democratize your data. Business intelligence reports remove the gatekeeping of insights and makes data visualization accessible to anyone. Increase the productivity of your non technical users by arming them with historical data and enhancing data literacy.
- Stop relying on gut decisions. As we already mentioned, gut decisions don’t cut it anymore. It’s far more likely for your ‘gut’ to act emotionally, irrationally, or uninformed. Data doesn’t lie and enables your key decision-makers to make the right call at any given moment. Ready-made reports improve data literacy among your sales reps, arming them with the right data story to have better customer conversations.
- Plan for the future. The beautiful thing about trends is that they’re forward-looking. Accessing trends means you can forecast and predict the behavior of your customers using a BI reporting process. That means planning for your business’ future is easier than ever, and you can be 100% confident about your forecasting information.
- Boost customer satisfaction. With a greater capacity to track customer behaviors and trends, you can gather customer data so that you can better serve them in the future. Cater to your customer expectations and tailor your services and offerings to your customer demand with historical data. That’ll mean happier customers that keep coming back and buying from you.
- Increase revenue. All of these points so far directly or indirectly lead to revenue growth but BI reports are really that valuable. Insights into your inventory mean you can boost your profit margins. The use of BI reports means that your employees’ productivity levels will increase as well. We don’t need to explain that both of these directly benefit your bottom line.
You should care about business intelligence reports because every insight it shows you goes straight to your revenue. There are a plethora of business intelligence tools available today that are helping businesses transform insights into action and revenue. It’s never been easier than it is today, especially for non technical users. Missing out on BI is lost time, money, and resources.
White Cup BI - Business Intelligence Software
Business intelligence tools like White Cup BI allow distributors to harness the power of their data analysis. Simply put, it works. Our distributor-focused BI reporting tools put the data that matters most at your fingertips with dashboards and scorecards that uncover new opportunities to increase revenue performance across all aspects of your company. With over 15 ERP integrations with the best systems in the industry and over 200 built-in, ready-to-use reports and dashboards, White Cup BI is a game changer for distributors.
Say Goodbye to Sales Pains, Prepare for Profit Gains
In the distribution space, you are facing challenges never before experienced, and your customers are too. It’s a whole new world that requires new strategies to unlock new sales opportunities and build relationships based on a deeper understanding of your customers’ needs.
White Cup turns a distributor’s sales pains into profit gains. Our CRM and business intelligence software make it easier for you to sell more, keep more profit, and beat the competition. With over 20 years of experience, White Cup is trusted by more than 850 customers globally. Contact us to see how we can help your distribution business win more.
