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A new and insightful guide by Sales-i highlighting the main 7 reasons why your company needs business intelligence, especially for those within the manufacturing industry. Read on for everything you need to know. http://www.sales-i.com - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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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
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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
on your part. SHARE THIS EBOOK
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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.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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?
“ “
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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
the competition every single time.WWW.SALES-I.COM
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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.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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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7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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