In order to maximize sales and reach revenue targets, the sales department must be able to rely on powerful tools that provide better knowledge of its market and help it make the best decisions on a daily basis. In this context, Business Intelligence is a valuable ally to better manage sales performance, with many benefits for your company.
Receive key information in real time
Traditional reports and dashboards have two major drawbacks:
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They are based on historical data, allowing only the analysis of the company’s past sales performance.
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Therefore, new reports must be generated regularly with more recent data.
In fact, traditional Business Analytics is limited to the study of the company’s past performance in order to obtain information and direct the development of future activities. In contrast, with a Business Intelligence solution, the company has immediate access to up-to-date information.
Thus, the analysis of data related to sales performance is much more relevant: all data coming from sales representatives, points of sale or distribution networks is visible in real time.
Thanks to tailored indicators and alerts, the organization can identify problems before they occur, as well as proactively exploit sales opportunities that arise. BI is therefore a powerful management tool and a valuable resource for making the best decisions and defining the company’s development strategy.
Easily generate and check your KPIs
A Business Intelligence solution has the ability to collect data from a multitude of sources: customer relationship management (CRM) software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, spreadsheets, etc. Thus, BI makes it possible to cross-reference sales, financial or marketing data: you benefit from richer and more qualitative information that can be analysed in depth.
The data, collected automatically and in real time by the BI solution, can be easily transformed into key performance indicators (KPI), of which here are some examples:
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Conversion rate
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Customer retention rate
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Loyalty rate
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Churn rate
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Number of prospect meetings
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Number of sales
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Number of lost sales
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Number of new customers
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Number of customers lost
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Number of leads
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Revenue generated by the sales representative
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Revenue generated compared to forecasts
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Revenue compared to the number of sales (average basket size)
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Contribution margin
More importantly, these indicators are constantly updated. This means you can monitor sales performance on a daily basis, without having to constantly create new dashboards and reports.
Benefit from readable and understandable data
A Business Intelligence solution is also an excellent data visualization tool, as it allows you to display information in multiple forms: pivot tables, gauge charts, curves, diagrams, scatter plots, maps, etc.
Thanks to data visualization, it is possible to display the data in the most appropriate way in order to better analyze the different stages of your sales cycle. This dynamic, comprehensible and pleasant formatting is also very useful for contextualizing information and deciphering it more effectively.
Equipped with a data visualization tool, your sales team has a 360-degree view of their customers and prospects, with rich, consolidated data available in sales dashboards.
Take a more relaxed approach to the future
Far from being just a performance management solution, Business Intelligence allows you to improve your information and better predict future trends, thanks in particular to predictive and comparative analyses.
In fact, it is possible to identify opportunities and potential new deals by combining historical and current data. By leveraging Big Data, a BI solution is able to anticipate certain trends and even forecast peak and off-peak periods.
This way, you can better evaluate your sales figures for the next few months and years, so that you can review your objectives upwards or downwards.
Improve collaboration within teams
A customized BI solution is also a great tool for collaborative work. It allows employees to create dashboards as well as share them with their colleagues and interact with them, whether through comments or chat.
Moreover, management dashboards are accessible from any device: computer, smartphone or tablet. This will accelerate and streamline exchanges within the sales team for an even more efficient collaboration.
In addition, notifications can be sent automatically, for example when a new sale takes place or when a deviation from the objectives is detected. The employees concerned are then immediately informed in order to implement the necessary actions.
Business Intelligence also strengthens cooperation between the sales department and other corporate departments, such as the marketing and IT departments.
With a BI solution, your company will finally have access to rich, up-to-date information in real time, which can be analysed in depth and visualized in a clear and understandable way. This will significantly improve the management of sales performance, while improving collaboration within the teams.
