7 signs you need bi - manufacturers

7 SIGNSYOU NEED BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

MANUFACTURERS

A publication of

Most businesses haven’t even heard about Business Intelligence, but most need it.

“ “

The pressure within the manufacturing industry of

late has been astronomical. With a steady increase

in globalization, a stagnating economy and a

customer that only continues to expect more,

manufacturers of all shapes and sizes are finding

themselves in somewhat troubled waters.

In such a turbulent and competitive industry, now is

the time to leverage technology, extracting value

from every corner of your business in order to get

and stay ahead of your competition. Traditional ERP

and CRM solutions alone are no longer enough. But

combining two is where the magic really starts to

happen.

Business Intelligence (BI) solutions automate the task

of analyzing data, providing a better understanding of

company performance, creating a proactive sales culture

offering a complete customer view for the entire

business and streamlining the sales and marketing

process.If you’re finding yourself sat on the fence of

whether to introduce BI to your business or not,

here are the 7 hard- hitting signs that you need

it.

7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers


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1. Business is booming

Great news! Growth is something that every

company strives for but once you’ve gone

through the difficult period as a start up and

established yourself in a bustling marketplace,

serious growth is the next leap towards success.

Right now, you’re faced with a great opportunity

to cement your place in the manufacturing

industry, so don’t let it slip away.

A growing business means an increase in data,

customers, products, prospects and even

employees. Managing such a data-rich

environment is difficult at the best of times,

especially when you have more pressing

business matters to deal with.

BI solutions take all this difficulty away, happily

feeding on the heaps of data that you’re

producing and crunching it down into instant

insights and identifying valuable opportunities to

keep your business growing with very little input

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2. Poor flow of informationIn companies of any size, communication is often one of the biggest

challenges any employee will face. Staying abreast of key

developments, sales progress, customer interactions and even top

selling products is a constant battle.

Managing the flow of information is something that every company needs to

stay on top of and the only way to control a data-rich organization is through

technology.

With the help of BI, your entire business will be reading from the same

page. Most good BI solutions integrate sales and customer information, so

you always have a complete picture of each interaction, sale and next steps

with your customers. There’s little more embarrassing than calling a

customer to make sure they’re enjoying their latest purchase only to find

out they didn’t receive it and are still waiting on a replacement. It doesn’t

say a lot for your customer service either.



3. Losing track of sales performanceWhile it is all well and good that your team is hitting targets

every month, are they really extracting the most profitability

and value out of each deal that they close? Or are they simply

making the ‘easy sale’ and offering the cheapest possible

option?

At the end of the day, a sale is a sale and most salespeople

tend not to spend hours rifling through sales data in order

to find out their top grossing line items due to the time that

it takes to find such information. With this lack of insight, it

often becomes difficult to keep track of sales performance,

across endless spreadsheets, documents and scraps of

paper.Streamlining processes and saving valuable selling time is

one of the big benefits of BI. Not only does it flag up your top

grossing products, but actively identifies cross and switch-

selling opportunities to extract the most value and

profitability from each deal your team closes.

4. Complicated supply chain

There is no doubt about it; supply chains are becoming more

sophisticated. As a manufacturer, you work directly with

vendors, distributors, partners, retailers and end users all in

tandem. Each of these groups will have varying needs and

expectations from you as their manufacturer. As individual

accounts, these are difficult to manage sufficiently without

computer software of some sort in place.For any supply chain to operate at its best, information must

be shared across the business for a complete 360-degree

view of operations. From customer interactions to sales

activity and overall business performance, everything can be

monitored from beginning to end with a BI tool.

You’ll be able to spot areas for improvement while promoting

collaboration and real-time data sharing across your entire

operation. With valuable information at your fingertips, any

manufacturer will be able to optimize their service levels and

encourage customer loyalty. Supply chains can fall apart

quickly if every corner of your business isn’t being kept in the

loop with what is happening in neighboring business units.

Hitting sales targets is all well and good, but are you extracting the most profitability and value out of each deal?

“ “





5. Increased competitionAs the manufacturing industry continues to swell

with new companies springing up almost every

day, the pressure facing domestic companies is

also building due to the growth in globalization.

At home, competitors are no longer your only

problem, as international companies continue to

pinch your share of the local customer wallet by

doing things at a far lower cost.

The key to succeeding in a bustling international

market is the insight to act ahead of your

competitors. Using

BI to spot valuable sales opportunities while

providing outstanding service is a must and will

leave your competition hastily putting together

a comeback, while you’re closing the deal and

moving onto the next.

Predicting sales trends and identifying

opportunities isn’t easy to do manually, but a BI

tool can respond to your questions and provide

you with a targeted sales plan that will get your

customers on your side. BI will extract sales

ready, actionable data in seconds, arming you

and your team with the knowledge to outsmart

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6. Improve sales reporting process

Reporting of any kind is tedious, but it has to be done in some way or

another. Wasting hours at the end of every month to produce a complete

overview of sales, activity and profits is time that could be better spent

elsewhere.

Business Intelligence solutions streamline the sales reporting process and

do most of the hard work for you. Since BI feeds on your sales and

customer data, you hardly have to lift a finger to produce rich sales reports.

Include as much or as little detail as you need and you’re done in seconds

rather than hours. Your boss need never know you took the easy way out

and got your BI solution to do it for you.



65%direct sales

35% channel sales

7. Forecast customer demandsAs in any industry, forecasting the spend trends of your customers is key to

effectively managing cash flow and inventory levels accurately. The

manufacturing industry in particular is built on processes and being able to

respond to changes in the market almost instantly.

Making accurate forecasts to account for shifting demand patterns is

more important now than it has ever been before. Not only will you be

able to align your manufacturing operations to meet customer orders,

but you’ll be avoiding lost sales with the insight to accurately plan for

the future.

With a BI tool in place, you can monitor the spend patterns and

trends of each of your customers, while accurately managing the

manufacture of goods to meet this demand. You’ll be able to

identify when you need to increase or decrease production at

specific times throughout the year, spot trends towards any new

products and even create expert sales and marketing campaigns to

sell your most profitable lines.



sales-i is a powerful cloud based Business Intelligence

solution that joins your ERP data together with your CRM data

to give you actionable sales information for each and every

customer. We turn a good sales person into a great one.

www.sales-i.com/request-demo

STREAMLINEYOUR SALES AND MARKETING PROCESS

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