When it comes to changes in the business-intelligence (BI) technology market, old giants of the enterprise software industry like SAP and Oracle aren’t leading the charge as you might expect. Instead, younger companies are the ones to watch when it comes to the most exciting business-intelligence software products that we’re seeing hit the market today.
Whether it’s Salesforce’s state-of the-art Analytics Cloud system; or the mobile POS solutions that we’ve seen from Revel Systems; or, from Tableau, BI software that delivers immaculate data reporting at the speed of real time, one thing is for certain: Monolithic systems are increasingly a thing of the past.
That means that newer, more adaptable BI tools (and the across-organization integration capabilities they offer) are going to become an increasingly large part of the way we communicate and do business.
In that spirit, here are three BI trends that can benefit your business.
Businesses are becoming more and more customer-centric, and this is due in large part to the continual effect that social media has on how consumers behave. As a small business, you can’t be caught behind the curve in this regard. It’s no longer the case that businesses, large or small, can simply expect customers to buy products and services. Instead, current and potential customers also “participate” by writing blog posts, sharing reviews through sites like Facebook and Twitter and commenting on businesses through a multitude of other social networks.
In fact, social media platforms have given marketers an endless number of ways to connect with consumers and pick up on the different data trails that these networks create; and that’s key to creating engagement. However, it’s not enough to start a Facebook page or Twitter account and expect that simply because you’re on social media, your customers will come to you.
