Using Big Data

Big data and real-time data analytics are among the biggest trends in business today. Campaign projection software, resource allocation tracking systems, and other similar programs give a company valuable inputs about customers and employees. Getting those insights in real-time will help them respond better to concerns.

Using big data opens various opportunities for a company. Maximize revenue, learn how to take care of personnel better, and improve the customer journey, all using big data. Analytics can also help a company strategize better and protect itself from financial, reputational, or technological losses.

As helpful as they may be, insights like these come with a cost. The most significant barrier for many businesses is that the infrastructure a company needs for a fully-realized data analytics system is expensive. In this article, we delve into the reasons why your company should consider real-time data analytics despite this.

It mitigates pain points or major errors in the workflow

Real-time data analytics provides near-instantaneous insight, allowing companies to spot workflow problems quickly. This leads to a faster turnaround for solutions. It also results in a workforce with a growth mindset.

Having ready access to data prevents issues from becoming causes for downtime or complete operational breakdown. The company can preserve its revenue-earning capacity and keep its reputation intact.

It helps companies note new strategies competitors use.

Data obtained real-time can also help businesses keep tabs on the competition. A company can stay ahead by receiving notifications when their rivals deploy new strategies like raising or lowering prices or switching to different office hours.

It can also use campaign planning tools to know in advance how their product might fare when pitted against one from another company. Strategizing data use lets a business constantly evolve while keeping itself attuned to how the industry is shifting.

It helps companies manage resources better.

Smarter Resource Management

Finding the right people for a project is a challenge for most organizations. Before the advent of data-based decision making, managers allocated resources manually. They also partly relied on historical information about people's capacities and the amount of money needed for specific projects, which isn’t the most scientific way of making decisions.

Manual resource allocation was a time-consuming process; businesses waited until the end of the month for reports on how the company spent resources. At this point, there could not be any interventions made apart from adjusting the order for next months' supplies, or reshuffling personnel to better roles.

With real-time analytics, though, a company can have a better handle on their resources. For example, they can see at once which resources are idle and which ones are operating at full capacity. Seeing this allows them to make the necessary changes as they are needed and before the situation becomes irreparable.

It makes it easier to detect fraud

Simpler Crisis Management

Successful businesses must contend with fraudulent operators and criminals in their industry. These individuals might attack from all fronts, even from within the company. Real-time data analytics helps businesses track suspicious movements. Systems can flag fraud, theft, insider trading, and other dubious activities for observation.

A financial institution, for instance, could be alerted by an analytics program about large amounts of money deposited from a political hotspot. This deposit could be a red flag for money laundering. Tools like these help prevent a company from becoming an unwitting accomplice or a victim of a crime.

It helps a company improve its service

Real-time data analytics can flag issues that crop up when customers use a company's product or service. This allows a company to respond quickly to prevent these concerns from becoming more extensive and less easily managed.

The benefits are clear, especially today when social media could easily exacerbate a problem that could be solved easily behind closed doors or with a few well-placed calls regarding customer service.

It keeps a company in the black.

Get Reliable Results

Professional services organizations generally have slim margins. With real-time analytics, a company can leverage information to improve revenue. They can optimize realized hourly bill rates and billable utilization, or the hours billed divided by available hours.

If you can see in real-time a project's billable hours, you will know if the billing is lower than the projections. You can intervene before the problem makes a negative impact on the overall profit margin.

Companies need to make these adjustments as the incidents occur so they can control the situation. If they wait until the end of a project, they would have lost the window within which they can reap insights about the amount of work employees are doing. Real-time analytics offer more visibility into billing.

It ensures more reliable forecasting

Real Forecasting

Service professionals can be more confident in their forecasting and run their business with more certainty with the help of real-time analytics. Forecasts used to be somewhat inaccurate in the past. For instance, when a project is in the planning stage, managers have to manually check calendars to identify which resources would be available within the given duration.

In contrast, real-time analytics does away with time-consuming spreadsheets. With campaign planning software, a manager can instantly see project backlogs, services projects that are still in the pipeline, projects invoiced, and projects for which clients have paid.

They also have access to revenue and analyze it at various levels. You can see how much money is coming into the company through multiple lenses like customer type, project type, and even region where the project launched.

It helps match supply with demand

With real-time visibility into a pipeline, a manager is always aware of the resources at their disposal. They can quickly gauge how much of the product or service clients want at any given time and figure out where they can source from within the company to fulfil the demand.

Analytics tells you a lot about your resource pool. In the past, it was not possible to have this kind of instantaneous view into a company's resources, and this is valuable to companies that rely on moving large volumes of inventory or meeting multiple clients' requests at the same time.

It helps control the value leakage

Free services and discounts are a part of any company's strategy. A software company, for example, could offer discounted services to sell product licenses. Companies implement this type of promotion strategically so that the company does not negatively impact the market for service organizations.

Real-time analytics gives organizations a clearer picture of the real amount of discounting for a project. It allows businesses to define the giveaway parameters. You don't necessarily want to give your entire service away for free; analytics will help your company contain your products' value.

Tools like these will let you see how much value has leaked out of the bucket. It can also give your business insights into whether this is an acceptable amount of leakage or if you need to make interventions and execute changes.

Conclusion

Real-time data analytics are valuable for any organization. Whether service- or product-oriented, analytics tools can help you see the big picture and work on solutions that accurately respond to the situations on the ground. With these technologies, you will surely reap the long-term benefits—provided, of course, that you know what to do with the data and act promptly.

Help your team maximize your company's real-time data with MarketPlan. Our campaign analytics software enables marketing teams to create sound and reliable projections while keeping you connected on one platform. Get in touch with us today to learn more!