Real-time intelligence and strategic planning may seem like a poor fit, since you do not want to be tinkering with your long-term planning too often. However, your business is gathering data continually, and your software should be automatically compiling it into intelligence that allows strategic planning to take place at appropriate times, without waiting for updates that could stall the process or create fog right when you need to see most clearly.
Moving from a Backward Analysis to Forward-Looking Intelligence
If you have regularly scheduled strategic planning meetings, then you very likely have an employee—possibly several—whose job it is to assemble reports that look back over designated time periods to give you and your team a clear picture of the trends in your company’s growth, customers, market share, etc.
What if you could look at business intelligence at the same time? If you knew what factors contributed to lower customer acquisition costs, or high customer loyalty, you could develop strategic initiatives to address those opportunities and be able to track the results of that work on an on-going basis.
Keeping Focused with Real-Time Intelligence
Once a goal is agreed to, keep everyone motivated with useful reports and clear success indicators. Real-time intelligence can keep you connected to your strategic plans through dashboards and automated reports without creating more work for your employees or managers.
Your existing ERP or CRM solution may not be able to provide this level of insight but getting there does not mean replacing it. Adding a business intelligence layer can be highly cost-effective, with a payback measured in months in many cases.
For example, Triple Helix client Koster Keunen wanted to improve the effectiveness of its sales team and worked with us to develop a custom sales portal that used data in existing systems to deliver a more useful view of customer data and notifications when a customer’s purchases deviated significantly from their average. The new portal saved thousands of hours of manual work and getting the intelligence in real-time has provided the sales team with a critical speed advantage.
Triple Helix focuses on delivering software that makes a positive impact on operations and solves business data and process problems. We have helped clients in manufacturing, professional services, and non-profit services, and can help your business too. Contact us if you would like to schedule a risk-free consultation to see how your organization could benefit from a custom software solution.
