Startup entrepreneurs face a world of opportunities, but they also face a large swath of challenges and a heavy amount of competition. It should come as little surprise then that data from Statistic Brain reveals that more than 50 percent of startups in the United States don’t last longer than four years. While there are many issues that can make or break the success of a startup, one area that is becomingly increasingly important for companies of all sizes is business intelligence (BI). Today’s startup founders have access to a wide range of tools that offer historical and predictive data analyses to spur better decision-making.
The problem, of course, is whether startup founders are willing to take advantage of these available resources. In reality, if you wish to see success in 2020 and beyond, you need to start making business intelligence a top priority now.
Improve Your Time-Management
Many startup founders know that there is important information contained within their company data, but they make the mistake of thinking they can’t afford an additional software tool. They assume that they will be able to find time to look through the information on their own to find insights. Unfortunately, these good intentions rarely translate to action. As Anne-Claire Herve notes in an article for Innovation Enterprise, polls reveal that 56 percent of small-to-medium-sized businesses report “rarely or infrequently” checking their data. An additional 3 percent have never looked at their data at all. When digging into the reasons behind this misuse, a full 33 percent of those surveyed said that the reason they didn’t look at their data was because they were too busy with other responsibilities.
From marketing your product or service to gaining financing, there are already many responsibilities pulling you in different directions. Poring over minuscule data points can be excessively time-consuming, keeping you from fulfilling other important responsibilities. By letting a business-intelligence tool do the hard work of sifting through data for you, you will be able to operate more efficiently so that nothing gets overlooked.
Gain the Kowledge for Smarter Decision-Making
Business intelligence goes well beyond simply reporting the data. These analytics tools actively look for connections between multiple data sources to help you discover the reasons behind certain trends and events. Not only can these tools offer insights, but many also offer predictive -- and even prescriptive -- analytics to present workable solutions that you can use to improve business operations. With data insights in hand, you can make more informed decisions that are more likely to have successful outcomes.
Of course, quality decision-making depends on asking the right questions of your analytics tools. In a recent blog post, Jim Rich, global VP of sales for Sisense, a BI software provider, explains, “Most companies have similar KPIs: increased sales, expansion into growth markets and territories, improved operational efficiency and so forth. The thing is, everybody’s looking for the same stuff. Truly exceptional companies are those that modify and pivot their KPIs based on a combination of macroeconomics, what’s happening in their industry and identifying new KPIs that set them apart from the competition."
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