Posts Tagged ‘Business Intelligence’

Note: this is the last post in the series on how to increase sales.

3 Steps to Increase Sales Now- Average Sale per Customer

In the last couple of posts, we discussed how you can increase sales by examining your data using a dashboard or analytical tool, to become familiar with two key measures:

1. The number of customers you have (current, new, lost), and
2. The frequency with which they purchase.

The third measure, increasing sales per customer, is probably one of the biggest opportunities you have to increase sales.

However, few companies recognize this and focus on it.  Read more... (537 words, 1 image, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Note: This is the first post in a 3 post series on increasing sales

Not another sales motivational blog post

By now everybody’s heard the term “coffee is for closers,” made famous by Alec Baldwin’s “in-your-face” speech in the movie Glengarry Glenn Ross. Baldwin’s scientific method for motivating the sales guys at this hard-sell investment real estate company? He used pure macho bravado to appeal to their competitive instincts and desire to avoid the humiliation of being fired, or even winning a set of steak knives as the “second prize” in sales.  Read more... (707 words, 1 image, estimated 2:50 mins reading time)

Small Businesses are Sick of Spreadsheets

When Lotus 1-2-3 came out on January 26, 1983, it was one of the first spreadsheet’s to become hugely popular because of the great productivity gains businesses obtained from it.

Now spreadsheets have become a staple of everyday business life (with Microsoft Excel as the dominant spreadsheet), but more and more companies are discovering that in order to really see how their business is performing in a timely fashion, spreadsheets are a real pain.

That’s what I’ve been discovering over the last few months as I embarked on a quest to find out, from our customers’ mouths, what was it  that really made them decide to become customers of KPI Online.  Read more... (581 words, 1 image, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

By Tracy Fabian, pre-sales engineer

Business Intelligence for Small and Medium Enterprises

In today’s marketplace, small and medium organizations are looking to deploy Business Intelligence (BI) applications in the most cost effective manner.  Software as a Service (Saas) provides a more cost effective solution than most BI fully licensed applications.

But before you implement any old BI SaaS application, make sure it’s comprehensive. It should allow you to monitor, analyze and act on your data.

All of these attributes should be available in one application.  Read more... (434 words, 3 images, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

Source: iStockPhoto

By Sergio Garza Govela, VP of Sales

Not to jump on the “let’s analyze why LucidEra went out of business” bandwagon again (well, yes actually). There have already been countless blog posts and articles by respected analysts and bloggers such as Trident Capital, their VC firm, David Raab, and Merv Adrian, to name a few, that have discussed the reasons.

Of course other Saas vendors, our competitors, have done the same.

But it brings up a question on the value that BI providers bring, and Saas BI providers in particular. Where’s the business value?  Read more... (781 words, 1 image, estimated 3:07 mins reading time)

Business Intelligence for Small Business Source: iStockPhoto

Small businesses today are in survival mode.

That’s the stark conclusion from a recent blog post “Small-business optimism rises-but so does stress,” by Rieva Lesonsky. She cited a recent American Express OPEN® Small Business Monitor survey.

Forty-one percent of those surveyed said their focus for the next six months will be maintaining current sources of income; just 26 percent are focused on growth—the lowest number in the history of the Monitor survey.

How can you, as an entrepreneur, survive while maintaining current sources of income?  Read more... (730 words, 1 image, estimated 2:55 mins reading time)

Typical BI User Source: iStockPhoto

By David Abdo, CEO, and Fernando Labastida, Director of Marketing, KPIOnline.com

The Real Reason for BI: Lost In Gobbledygook, Speeds And Feeds

In the introduction to the revised edition of his edgy eBook “TheGobbldeygook Manifesto,” David Meerman Scott declared:

Oh jeez, not another flexible, scalable, groundbreaking, industry-standard, cutting-edge product from a market-leading, well positioned company! Ugh. I think I’m gonna puke!

David told me himself he was thinking of the Business Intelligence industry.

Just kidding.

I’ve never spoken to David Meerman Scott before, but I do follow him on Twitter.

But in the constant discussion of dashboards, pre-canned and customized reports, regression analysis, slice and dice, drill-ups, drill-downs, predictive analysis, etc., it seems we are caught up in our own industry gobbldeygook.

The real reason for the use of Business Intelligence tools has gotten lost in the shuffle.  Read more... (817 words, 1 image, estimated 3:16 mins reading time)