Seldom do leaders assign work to individuals based on the corporate goal of achieving something.
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In a world of e-commerce and online activities, trade shows can be overlooked; however, this offline alternative is far from being unimportant. Contemporary trade shows offer the opportunity for an entire industry to put their best foot forward, attracting potential investors and customers. A myriad of competitors shall be vying for trade show revenue, and the first impression of a trade show stand can make or break a sale. Naturally, the first step in creating an engaging and approachable stall is to have sturdy pop up stands; nothing is more uninviting than a collapsed stand.
Modern trade show stall formats tend to utilise open curved fabric stands as they are approachable from the front, right, and left, rather than the conventional booth or cubical format. The open format permits the engagement of more potential customers, because it’s generally more inviting and interpersonal, as customers are free to come as they please without the barrier of a booth between the salesman and the customer.
The Display
The fascination with a stall begins with what observers can passively see before they decide whether or not to further engage with the stall. Images and brand names are conventional passive marketing materials. A projected video or slideshow, however, tends to generate more interest as it allows observers to passively view a demonstration of a product or service. Passive marketing materials are designed to generate interest and proffer brand awareness, comparable to a giant advertisement.
Gimmick style materials, such as pens and caps, are popular and can be used to promote brand awareness outside of the trade show; however, these should only be handed out after a customer engagement as a reminder of the brand.
Active marketing materials then advance the cause of passive materials and commonly constitute leaflets, business cards, brochures, booklets, and even interactive displays. These materials are designed to engage potential customers on a deeper level by:
Building customer relationships,
Establishing the expertise of a company or business, and
Delving into the question of ‘why’ a company or business is better than its’ competition.
Active marketing materials contain the information a potential customer needs. Interactive kiosk displays and tablet devices generally have higher levels of engagement; however, leaflets and booklets can be taken home for consideration in an environment outside the exhilaration of a trade show.
The Continuation
Trade Shows are merely an entry-point for customers and the attained sales leads must be developed into business. A resourceful method is to categorise sales leads into different priority groups, for example:
Group 1 – Very Interested
Group 2 – Somewhat Intrigued
Group 3 – Hesitant
Each group must be treated differently as resources ought not to be wasted by attempting to convince hesitant customers and allowing interested customers to slip away. Naturally, very interested clients ought to be contacted first for any follow-up processes, followed by group 2 and then group 3.
The Strategy
Prior to committing to a presence at a trade show, a marketing strategy must be created. While potential customers are seeking business, a stall must still outrank its’ competition, and the mere presence at a trade show does not guarantee engagement, nor does it guarantee sales.
What are the primary and secondary goals of attending the trade show?
The objectives of trade show marketing can differ, for example, a business may wish to:
Generate sales or leads
Build business relationships
Build brand awareness
Reinforce existing leads
Promote recent developments for training opportunities
Attaining a sale or leads is generally the primary objective; however, during a trade show, this may encounter some resistance. As a secondary objective, for group 2 and 3 leads, consider promoting other avenues of engagement, such as email / social media subscriptions, or proffering brand awareness to increase direct engagement with the company when they are considering a business proposal.
Trade show stalls ought to create a lasting impression and a memorable experience.
This is commonly assessed within the first few seconds of an engagement, which is why the first impression is crucial. Sales scripts and pitches must reflect this objective and the different avenues a potential customer could be taken down should be mapped out. This will proffer a smooth experience and when combined with active marketing materials, shall greatly assist in achieving the stall’s predetermined goals.
Trade show events differ; choose one which matches the goals of the business.
Trade shows can be in the form of:
Networking events,
Industry events,
Seminars,
Conferences,
Sponsored events, and
Webinars, amongst others.
If the primary objective of the business is to increase brand awareness or build business relationships, then a networking event may be the most suitable.
Finally, assess the results.
Consider what factors constitute a successful campaign, what was popular and what was not.
Were the primary and secondary objectives achieved?
Did leads materialise?
Are people talking about the brand?
How many people subscribed?
How many are actively engaging with the company?
Let the numbers do the talking and assess the results. This shall determine whether another trade show should be attended, or whether other marketing avenues ought to be considered.
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The most difficult question to answer when starting an Artificial Intelligence project is often to determine where to begin. The tendency is to jump straight into the technology without fully defining the problem or examining the market.
Before starting, define what problem needs to be solved and who needs the solution. It’s important to be very specific about your audience because these are the people who will actually purchase or use the product or service. What the end users need can be discovered using a variety of techniques, including market research, surveys and so on. Without defining the problem and the market, it’s likely the ROI will be weak and making sales will be difficult. Often, this is seen as technology for technology’s sake, or doing it just because it can be done. In other words, start with a business problem, an unused data set or survey the new AI techniques, which might identify a problem, a solution and a customer.
To operationalize an AI framework, use the concept of People, Processes, Data and Technology. With People, the concern is with building a team with the right skill set and organization. Processes deal with how the project is developed and the different methodologies available to achieve the goal. With Data, have a data strategy and focus on quality not quantity, as well as accessibility. Finally, Technology provides the software and hardware considerations on which to build the project. This approach can be molded and customized to fit the needs of any project. Just to be clear, this is a blueprint and is not intended as a straitjacket. Use the framework to enable progress, not to restrict your freedom of action.
If an organization is just starting with AI, which many are, change management strategy is very applicable. Change management helps build advocacy and a shared vision within organizations. The thing that many leaders understand is people implement change and that you can’t exclude people from the equation. Plans and processes are necessary but change often fails because the human side is not appropriately factored into the process.
For an AI project to be successful, somebody must ‘own’ it. This doesn’t imply that the project needs to be restrictively managed; rather, one or more senior stakeholders in the business must support the project, its goals and the team. And where the project sits depends on how your company is organized. No matter how a company is organized, the AI team must be embedded within the business and not siloed. If an AI team is isolated from the rest of the business, then their efficiency will be reduced, and they may not consider the needs of end users and stakeholders within the organization.
There also needs to be consideration of how data scientists and AI engineers work together. Are they working as one team or are there multiple teams? Do they work for the same organization? These and other questions must be addressed from the outset. First, you need to define the role of the data scientist. Are they a business or domain expert, statistics expert, programming expert, data technology expert or a visualization and communications expert?
To infuse AI into a company’s culture, communicate throughout the business to increase awareness and acceptance of AI, and build an understanding of the purpose, terms and options available. Your business can also provide educational opportunities to bring members of your organization in all areas of your business up to speed on the concepts. The team can be based out of IT, which would be IT-centric, integrated between data science and IT or a specialized group with team members from throughout the business.
Ultimately, start with the problem and work towards the solution with AI. AI is a profoundly powerful tool to get to that solution, yet there are many things to be considered; including the people who staff the projects and their skills, specialties and experience. However, choosing the right strategic AI framework will guide the project to success.
About the Author
Chris Duffey is author of Superhuman Innovation: Transforming Businesses with Artificial Intelligence, and the Head of Artificial Intelligence Innovation and Strategy at Adobe. Chris spearheads Adobe’s Creative Cloud strategic development innovation partnerships across the creative enterprise space.
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Contractors need to devise ways to cut costs in order to remain profitable. With increased competition, the need to cut costs has become important now more than ever.
Eliminating people is not the right way to cut costs. This will only stifle the ability of your firm to make a profit. Instead, you should look for other ways to cut costs and boost profitability.
1. Cost Audit
The first step in cutting costs should begin with a complete audit of the existing expenses. You should consider ways to reduce operational expenses.
You can relocate the office to a location where the rent is lower. Also, you can consider the shift from in-house to cloud operations to cut overheads.
A lot of contractors subscribe to different software services yet don’t use most of them. Consider whether the services really add value to your business by saving time or improving efficiency. If not, it’s better to cancel the subscription.
2. Time and Contract Clause
Instead of Under-the-contract-price, you should consider adding the add-to-exceed clause. In the former case, the owner of the project only has to pay a fixed cost that includes overhead and profit. This is not necessarily the most cost-effective approach.
Instead, you should consider the time and materials contract. This is a type of contract consist of the following three terms.
Actual material costs
Actual direct labor costs at a specific hourly rate
Agree on add-on to cover profit and overhead
The main benefit of this type of contracting is flexibility. This cost structure allows you to adjust requirements, replace features, and cater to changed user requirements without taking a hit on the bottom-line.
3. Seek Multiple Bids
When working with a sub-contractor, you should consider multiple bids. This may take additional time, but the effort will be worth it in the end.
You may have to send lots of emails and hammer the phones. But this will allow you to lock in on subcontractors that offer services at the least costs. This extra work will help in significantly reduce the internal expenses.
4. Inspect Your Schedule
You should keep an eye on your schedule for any potential stacking or acceleration of activities. Compressing the schedule will allow you to squeeze cost advantages. Time is money and any time that is saved will have a positive impact on the company’s bottom-line.
5. Financial Prequalification
You should prequalify all subcontractors to reduce the risk in case of cost escalation. This is particularly important if the subcontractor will bear most of the risks. It will help in absorbing any deviances in a project that result in increased cost.
By financial prequalification, you can get assurance that the subcontractors will be able to absorb any costs overruns. Some of the criteria that you should consider include pipeline, days of cash, and work in progress.
The above tips can help in greatly reducing the contracting costs. Consider adding an escalation clause in all your projects as well. This will pass on the risk of cost increase to the project owners.
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In the digital-first, customer-centric world we live in today, managers and business owners must deal with information overload. That is the reason why they are always looking for ways to derive greater intelligence, control, and understanding from their data. Adopting a business intelligence (BI) strategy is one of the best ways to deal with this problem, but most organizations have been slow to integrate it within their business systems. This is mainly down to a lack of knowledge, as businesses still don’t know, where to start, what it involves, and how long it’ll take for them to see any benefits.
There’s no denying that business intelligence software is crucial in helping organizations make reliable and timely decisions about their operations. It ensures that the business can access reliable information and make insightful decisions by reacting in real time. Business intelligence software has played a major role in helping organizations meet their challenges like narrowing margins, high customer expectations, and global competition.
Most businesses are still using traditional methods, which makes it harder for them to make decisions, as the information is stored in separate applications and databases. How quickly and accurately a company responds in this technology-driven competitive market is the main difference between success and failure. Business intelligence technologies have several functions that improve their performance, and one of them is reporting. It plays a key role in business intelligence, as it allows the decision makers of the enterprise to support their work. The discovery of essential data patterns (analytics) is also done through reporting, which is another key role of business intelligence.
Some of the standard functions of business intelligence technologies include predictive and prescriptive analysis, business performance management, text mining, benchmarking, and online analytic processing. Business intelligence refers to the application, tools, and good practices that are used to access and analyze data to optimize or improve the performance of the business. It converts raw data into relevant information that enables tactical and strategic insights to make effective decisions.
Business intelligence software is a technological process, which collects and processes data to attain actionable information. It allows users to acquire information quickly and transfer them to the proper personnel to make the right decision. Business intelligence tools have been around for a long time, but it was only accessible to large enterprise, who had the infrastructure and resources to implement this technology.
However, thanks to the advancement of technology, even small enterprises now can access business intelligence software through cloud computing.
The Main Benefits of Business Intelligence Software
Any organization that wants to remain relevant in the competitive market of today must adapt fast and real-time integration of business intelligence software. Most organizations today have changed their modes of operation so they can adapt to modern business intelligence technologies. However, there are still plenty of organizations that are under the assumption that business intelligence software isn’t user-friendly and is complicated.
That’s a misconception about business intelligence software since it is user-friendly and can be adopted quickly by an organization, while it ensures maximum profitability by smoothing the decision-making process. Businesses that have adopted this technology in their systems are thriving in all the challenges they are facing at any stage of their projects. Business intelligence software also allows small and medium-sized enterprises to reduce their cost of operations by identifying areas that have higher costs of expenses and finding measures to reduce them.
The best thing about business intelligence software is that it allows businesses to have agile operations and is often the difference between operating on profits or losses. To give you a better idea, we are going to discuss some of the main benefits offered by business intelligence software:
1. Better Business Decisions
When a business adopts business intelligence software, its management can easily identify all the financial and customer data, production data, current data, and business aspects of the organization. This information will allow the management to synthesize and analyze the products and investment reports, which will help them make better business decisions that benefit the organization.
2. Enables Faster and Accurate Planning, Reporting, and Analysis
Business intelligence software offers real-time information, which helps it provide accurate reporting solutions as it can connect with an extensive range of data. The software can plan and analyze informed business solutions, which reduce potential risks and allow a business to achieve faster growth. Not only that, software solutions like Conexiom can import unstructured data from multiple sources into your system of records streamlining your workflow and improving efficiency.
3. Enhanced Speed of Decision-Making
Business intelligence software not only helps businesses make better decisions but also helps increase their decision-making speed as well. Without business intelligence software, an organization will be spending a lot of time implementing decisions, since they’ll need to cover business aspects one by one before making any decision. This is a time-consuming process, and with business intelligence software you cut down on the speed of decision-making.
4. Increased Business User Satisfaction
There is increased user satisfaction for the software because business intelligence offers better decision-making, reporting, and accurate analysis. It helps the business maximize its limited resources by using cost-effective solutions that allow business growth and enhance user satisfaction.
5. Customer Behavior Insights
Business intelligence software holds the key for identifying customer behavior patterns, as it determines customer responses and helps the business achieve market profitability by helping it retain customers and attract new clients.
6. Accurate Decision-Making
The best part about the business intelligence software is that it not only allows real-time decision-making but also enables accurate decisions to be made that will benefit the business. For instance, if your competitor decides to reduce the prices of their products, you’ll need to come up with a counter price for your product that is lower or similar. This decision will take some time to be implemented, as you’ll need to determine the impact of your profits after the price reduction. However, when you’re using business intelligence software, you get rapid and informed decisions that allow your business to stay on top of its game.
7. Increased Collaboration between Business & IT Units
Business intelligence software and systems have enabled growth collaborations between IT and business units. Any organization that aims to grow its operation must ensure that its business and IT units are working together, and this can be achieved easily with business intelligence software.
8. Offer Personalized Services
Business intelligence software is user-friendly and comes with a feature that personalizes information or data by making it easier to use and understand. The feature also ensures smoother collaboration between users in the organization and ensures a smoother transfer of data.
9. Track KPIs with Notifications and Alerts
The business intelligence software tracks the KPI by evaluating the current status and metric value against a target using specific measures that will send alerts to the user. These notifications allow users to come up with the right solutions or measures.
10. Identify Opportunities for Revenue
Revenue growth is essential to all organizations, and it is one of the main purposes of business intelligence software. Finding new revenue opportunities opens new doors for business and allows it to thrive and transform its operations. The software analyzes marketing strategies and campaigns to create important reports and insights on the best sources of high returns on investment.
11. Reduced Cost
Enterprises that struggle to sort out their financial statements are going to struggle in the long-run, and that is where business intelligence software plays such a major role. It helps find areas where the organization can cut down its costs, and the software helps to collect raw data on areas where there are high expenses and provides solutions to bring them down.
12. Better Operational Efficiency
Every business is striving to improve its operations, as it helps them take the next step in their development. However, to do that, businesses must monitor and measure their performance, and business intelligence software helps businesses come up with different activities that help drive business success. The software covers highly used metrics like productivity, performance, and employee satisfaction to ensure better operations in the organization.
13. Higher Quality Data
Data comes in all shapes and sizes, and some can be more complicated to understand and operate, which makes it difficult for organizations to take advantage of data-driven insights. There is a data visualization tool in business intelligence software, which allows for easier recognition of data. This feature is incredibly useful since it allows data to be converted into a better method or quality, which can be easily accessed.
14. Create a Data Culture in the Organization
A lot of organizations are guilty of data clustering, which leads to data manipulation and data loss. Business intelligence software is extremely useful when it comes to handling the data of a business since it allows easy collaboration and communications among members whenever data is updated. Users can also track data and its changes since notifications are sent to everyone.
15. Self-Service Culture
One of the biggest things about business intelligence software is that it promotes a culture of self-service in the business. Users can easily access data and easily manage it even if they aren’t familiar with the statistical analytics. Adding, creating, and manipulating data is easy, and this ensures cooperation between the different departments in the business.
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Tactical Execution Best Practice 1 – Priority System Alignment with Mission Goals
/in Premium, Tactical Execution/by StrategyDrivenHi there! Gain access to this article with a FREE StrategyDriven Insights Library – Sample Subscription. It’s FREE Forever with No Credit Card Required.
In addition to receiving access to Tactical Execution Best Practice 1 – Priority System Alignment with Mission Goals, you’ll help advance your career and business programs through anytime, anywhere access to:
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Additional Information
The following StrategyDriven recommended best practices can be used achieve the priority alignment discussed above:
What You Need to Know About Trade Show Marketing
/in Marketing & Sales/by StrategyDrivenIn a world of e-commerce and online activities, trade shows can be overlooked; however, this offline alternative is far from being unimportant. Contemporary trade shows offer the opportunity for an entire industry to put their best foot forward, attracting potential investors and customers. A myriad of competitors shall be vying for trade show revenue, and the first impression of a trade show stand can make or break a sale. Naturally, the first step in creating an engaging and approachable stall is to have sturdy pop up stands; nothing is more uninviting than a collapsed stand.
Modern trade show stall formats tend to utilise open curved fabric stands as they are approachable from the front, right, and left, rather than the conventional booth or cubical format. The open format permits the engagement of more potential customers, because it’s generally more inviting and interpersonal, as customers are free to come as they please without the barrier of a booth between the salesman and the customer.
The Display
The fascination with a stall begins with what observers can passively see before they decide whether or not to further engage with the stall. Images and brand names are conventional passive marketing materials. A projected video or slideshow, however, tends to generate more interest as it allows observers to passively view a demonstration of a product or service. Passive marketing materials are designed to generate interest and proffer brand awareness, comparable to a giant advertisement.
Gimmick style materials, such as pens and caps, are popular and can be used to promote brand awareness outside of the trade show; however, these should only be handed out after a customer engagement as a reminder of the brand.
Active marketing materials then advance the cause of passive materials and commonly constitute leaflets, business cards, brochures, booklets, and even interactive displays. These materials are designed to engage potential customers on a deeper level by:
Active marketing materials contain the information a potential customer needs. Interactive kiosk displays and tablet devices generally have higher levels of engagement; however, leaflets and booklets can be taken home for consideration in an environment outside the exhilaration of a trade show.
The Continuation
Trade Shows are merely an entry-point for customers and the attained sales leads must be developed into business. A resourceful method is to categorise sales leads into different priority groups, for example:
Each group must be treated differently as resources ought not to be wasted by attempting to convince hesitant customers and allowing interested customers to slip away. Naturally, very interested clients ought to be contacted first for any follow-up processes, followed by group 2 and then group 3.
The Strategy
Prior to committing to a presence at a trade show, a marketing strategy must be created. While potential customers are seeking business, a stall must still outrank its’ competition, and the mere presence at a trade show does not guarantee engagement, nor does it guarantee sales.
What are the primary and secondary goals of attending the trade show?
The objectives of trade show marketing can differ, for example, a business may wish to:
Attaining a sale or leads is generally the primary objective; however, during a trade show, this may encounter some resistance. As a secondary objective, for group 2 and 3 leads, consider promoting other avenues of engagement, such as email / social media subscriptions, or proffering brand awareness to increase direct engagement with the company when they are considering a business proposal.
Trade show stalls ought to create a lasting impression and a memorable experience.
This is commonly assessed within the first few seconds of an engagement, which is why the first impression is crucial. Sales scripts and pitches must reflect this objective and the different avenues a potential customer could be taken down should be mapped out. This will proffer a smooth experience and when combined with active marketing materials, shall greatly assist in achieving the stall’s predetermined goals.
Trade show events differ; choose one which matches the goals of the business.
Trade shows can be in the form of:
If the primary objective of the business is to increase brand awareness or build business relationships, then a networking event may be the most suitable.
Finally, assess the results.
Consider what factors constitute a successful campaign, what was popular and what was not.
Let the numbers do the talking and assess the results. This shall determine whether another trade show should be attended, or whether other marketing avenues ought to be considered.
Designing an AI Strategy for Superhuman Experiences
/in Organizational Performance Measures/by Chris DuffeyBefore starting, define what problem needs to be solved and who needs the solution. It’s important to be very specific about your audience because these are the people who will actually purchase or use the product or service. What the end users need can be discovered using a variety of techniques, including market research, surveys and so on. Without defining the problem and the market, it’s likely the ROI will be weak and making sales will be difficult. Often, this is seen as technology for technology’s sake, or doing it just because it can be done. In other words, start with a business problem, an unused data set or survey the new AI techniques, which might identify a problem, a solution and a customer.
To operationalize an AI framework, use the concept of People, Processes, Data and Technology. With People, the concern is with building a team with the right skill set and organization. Processes deal with how the project is developed and the different methodologies available to achieve the goal. With Data, have a data strategy and focus on quality not quantity, as well as accessibility. Finally, Technology provides the software and hardware considerations on which to build the project. This approach can be molded and customized to fit the needs of any project. Just to be clear, this is a blueprint and is not intended as a straitjacket. Use the framework to enable progress, not to restrict your freedom of action.
If an organization is just starting with AI, which many are, change management strategy is very applicable. Change management helps build advocacy and a shared vision within organizations. The thing that many leaders understand is people implement change and that you can’t exclude people from the equation. Plans and processes are necessary but change often fails because the human side is not appropriately factored into the process.
For an AI project to be successful, somebody must ‘own’ it. This doesn’t imply that the project needs to be restrictively managed; rather, one or more senior stakeholders in the business must support the project, its goals and the team. And where the project sits depends on how your company is organized. No matter how a company is organized, the AI team must be embedded within the business and not siloed. If an AI team is isolated from the rest of the business, then their efficiency will be reduced, and they may not consider the needs of end users and stakeholders within the organization.
There also needs to be consideration of how data scientists and AI engineers work together. Are they working as one team or are there multiple teams? Do they work for the same organization? These and other questions must be addressed from the outset. First, you need to define the role of the data scientist. Are they a business or domain expert, statistics expert, programming expert, data technology expert or a visualization and communications expert?
To infuse AI into a company’s culture, communicate throughout the business to increase awareness and acceptance of AI, and build an understanding of the purpose, terms and options available. Your business can also provide educational opportunities to bring members of your organization in all areas of your business up to speed on the concepts. The team can be based out of IT, which would be IT-centric, integrated between data science and IT or a specialized group with team members from throughout the business.
Ultimately, start with the problem and work towards the solution with AI. AI is a profoundly powerful tool to get to that solution, yet there are many things to be considered; including the people who staff the projects and their skills, specialties and experience. However, choosing the right strategic AI framework will guide the project to success.
About the Author
For more information, please visit: https://www.koganpage.com/product/superhuman-innovation-9780749483838
5 Effective Strategies for General Contractors to Cut Costs
/in Entrepreneurship, Managing Your Finances/by StrategyDrivenEliminating people is not the right way to cut costs. This will only stifle the ability of your firm to make a profit. Instead, you should look for other ways to cut costs and boost profitability.
1. Cost Audit
The first step in cutting costs should begin with a complete audit of the existing expenses. You should consider ways to reduce operational expenses.
You can relocate the office to a location where the rent is lower. Also, you can consider the shift from in-house to cloud operations to cut overheads.
A lot of contractors subscribe to different software services yet don’t use most of them. Consider whether the services really add value to your business by saving time or improving efficiency. If not, it’s better to cancel the subscription.
2. Time and Contract Clause
Instead of Under-the-contract-price, you should consider adding the add-to-exceed clause. In the former case, the owner of the project only has to pay a fixed cost that includes overhead and profit. This is not necessarily the most cost-effective approach.
Instead, you should consider the time and materials contract. This is a type of contract consist of the following three terms.
The main benefit of this type of contracting is flexibility. This cost structure allows you to adjust requirements, replace features, and cater to changed user requirements without taking a hit on the bottom-line.
3. Seek Multiple Bids
When working with a sub-contractor, you should consider multiple bids. This may take additional time, but the effort will be worth it in the end.
You may have to send lots of emails and hammer the phones. But this will allow you to lock in on subcontractors that offer services at the least costs. This extra work will help in significantly reduce the internal expenses.
4. Inspect Your Schedule
You should keep an eye on your schedule for any potential stacking or acceleration of activities. Compressing the schedule will allow you to squeeze cost advantages. Time is money and any time that is saved will have a positive impact on the company’s bottom-line.
5. Financial Prequalification
You should prequalify all subcontractors to reduce the risk in case of cost escalation. This is particularly important if the subcontractor will bear most of the risks. It will help in absorbing any deviances in a project that result in increased cost.
By financial prequalification, you can get assurance that the subcontractors will be able to absorb any costs overruns. Some of the criteria that you should consider include pipeline, days of cash, and work in progress.
The above tips can help in greatly reducing the contracting costs. Consider adding an escalation clause in all your projects as well. This will pass on the risk of cost increase to the project owners.
The Importance of Business Intelligence Software and Why It’s Integral for Business Success
/in Managing Your Business, Tactical Execution/by StrategyDrivenThere’s no denying that business intelligence software is crucial in helping organizations make reliable and timely decisions about their operations. It ensures that the business can access reliable information and make insightful decisions by reacting in real time. Business intelligence software has played a major role in helping organizations meet their challenges like narrowing margins, high customer expectations, and global competition.
Most businesses are still using traditional methods, which makes it harder for them to make decisions, as the information is stored in separate applications and databases. How quickly and accurately a company responds in this technology-driven competitive market is the main difference between success and failure. Business intelligence technologies have several functions that improve their performance, and one of them is reporting. It plays a key role in business intelligence, as it allows the decision makers of the enterprise to support their work. The discovery of essential data patterns (analytics) is also done through reporting, which is another key role of business intelligence.
Some of the standard functions of business intelligence technologies include predictive and prescriptive analysis, business performance management, text mining, benchmarking, and online analytic processing. Business intelligence refers to the application, tools, and good practices that are used to access and analyze data to optimize or improve the performance of the business. It converts raw data into relevant information that enables tactical and strategic insights to make effective decisions.
Business intelligence software is a technological process, which collects and processes data to attain actionable information. It allows users to acquire information quickly and transfer them to the proper personnel to make the right decision. Business intelligence tools have been around for a long time, but it was only accessible to large enterprise, who had the infrastructure and resources to implement this technology.
However, thanks to the advancement of technology, even small enterprises now can access business intelligence software through cloud computing.
The Main Benefits of Business Intelligence Software
Any organization that wants to remain relevant in the competitive market of today must adapt fast and real-time integration of business intelligence software. Most organizations today have changed their modes of operation so they can adapt to modern business intelligence technologies. However, there are still plenty of organizations that are under the assumption that business intelligence software isn’t user-friendly and is complicated.
That’s a misconception about business intelligence software since it is user-friendly and can be adopted quickly by an organization, while it ensures maximum profitability by smoothing the decision-making process. Businesses that have adopted this technology in their systems are thriving in all the challenges they are facing at any stage of their projects. Business intelligence software also allows small and medium-sized enterprises to reduce their cost of operations by identifying areas that have higher costs of expenses and finding measures to reduce them.
The best thing about business intelligence software is that it allows businesses to have agile operations and is often the difference between operating on profits or losses. To give you a better idea, we are going to discuss some of the main benefits offered by business intelligence software:
1. Better Business Decisions
When a business adopts business intelligence software, its management can easily identify all the financial and customer data, production data, current data, and business aspects of the organization. This information will allow the management to synthesize and analyze the products and investment reports, which will help them make better business decisions that benefit the organization.
2. Enables Faster and Accurate Planning, Reporting, and Analysis
Business intelligence software offers real-time information, which helps it provide accurate reporting solutions as it can connect with an extensive range of data. The software can plan and analyze informed business solutions, which reduce potential risks and allow a business to achieve faster growth. Not only that, software solutions like Conexiom can import unstructured data from multiple sources into your system of records streamlining your workflow and improving efficiency.
3. Enhanced Speed of Decision-Making
Business intelligence software not only helps businesses make better decisions but also helps increase their decision-making speed as well. Without business intelligence software, an organization will be spending a lot of time implementing decisions, since they’ll need to cover business aspects one by one before making any decision. This is a time-consuming process, and with business intelligence software you cut down on the speed of decision-making.
4. Increased Business User Satisfaction
There is increased user satisfaction for the software because business intelligence offers better decision-making, reporting, and accurate analysis. It helps the business maximize its limited resources by using cost-effective solutions that allow business growth and enhance user satisfaction.
5. Customer Behavior Insights
Business intelligence software holds the key for identifying customer behavior patterns, as it determines customer responses and helps the business achieve market profitability by helping it retain customers and attract new clients.
6. Accurate Decision-Making
The best part about the business intelligence software is that it not only allows real-time decision-making but also enables accurate decisions to be made that will benefit the business. For instance, if your competitor decides to reduce the prices of their products, you’ll need to come up with a counter price for your product that is lower or similar. This decision will take some time to be implemented, as you’ll need to determine the impact of your profits after the price reduction. However, when you’re using business intelligence software, you get rapid and informed decisions that allow your business to stay on top of its game.
7. Increased Collaboration between Business & IT Units
Business intelligence software and systems have enabled growth collaborations between IT and business units. Any organization that aims to grow its operation must ensure that its business and IT units are working together, and this can be achieved easily with business intelligence software.
8. Offer Personalized Services
Business intelligence software is user-friendly and comes with a feature that personalizes information or data by making it easier to use and understand. The feature also ensures smoother collaboration between users in the organization and ensures a smoother transfer of data.
9. Track KPIs with Notifications and Alerts
The business intelligence software tracks the KPI by evaluating the current status and metric value against a target using specific measures that will send alerts to the user. These notifications allow users to come up with the right solutions or measures.
10. Identify Opportunities for Revenue
Revenue growth is essential to all organizations, and it is one of the main purposes of business intelligence software. Finding new revenue opportunities opens new doors for business and allows it to thrive and transform its operations. The software analyzes marketing strategies and campaigns to create important reports and insights on the best sources of high returns on investment.
11. Reduced Cost
Enterprises that struggle to sort out their financial statements are going to struggle in the long-run, and that is where business intelligence software plays such a major role. It helps find areas where the organization can cut down its costs, and the software helps to collect raw data on areas where there are high expenses and provides solutions to bring them down.
12. Better Operational Efficiency
Every business is striving to improve its operations, as it helps them take the next step in their development. However, to do that, businesses must monitor and measure their performance, and business intelligence software helps businesses come up with different activities that help drive business success. The software covers highly used metrics like productivity, performance, and employee satisfaction to ensure better operations in the organization.
13. Higher Quality Data
Data comes in all shapes and sizes, and some can be more complicated to understand and operate, which makes it difficult for organizations to take advantage of data-driven insights. There is a data visualization tool in business intelligence software, which allows for easier recognition of data. This feature is incredibly useful since it allows data to be converted into a better method or quality, which can be easily accessed.
14. Create a Data Culture in the Organization
A lot of organizations are guilty of data clustering, which leads to data manipulation and data loss. Business intelligence software is extremely useful when it comes to handling the data of a business since it allows easy collaboration and communications among members whenever data is updated. Users can also track data and its changes since notifications are sent to everyone.
15. Self-Service Culture
One of the biggest things about business intelligence software is that it promotes a culture of self-service in the business. Users can easily access data and easily manage it even if they aren’t familiar with the statistical analytics. Adding, creating, and manipulating data is easy, and this ensures cooperation between the different departments in the business.