20 Real-world Examples of Business Intelligence (BI) in 2024

In today's dynamic business landscape, BI is a trending and highly used domain that combines business analytics, data visualization, data mining, and multiple other data-related operations. Businesses use the best practices coming under business intelligence to mine their data and extract the information essential to make significant business decisions, taking the help of experts like me.

For example, a retail store generates data regularly related to purchases. They gather information about the seller, age, gender, preferred purchases, and more. With the help of professionals, these raw data units are converted into a fruitful chunk of information based on which businesses plan their future marketing strategies. I've outlined 15 examples of business intelligence in this article to help anyone exploring this field get a clearer picture. Let’s dive in!

20 Real-World Examples of Business Intelligence

Global competition, demanding consumers, and fast-changing concepts have made it mandatory for every business to take solace in BI. This is why I’ve found solace in BI. Businesses can use the data they generate for their benefit and get all the required information to create a growth strategy. There are countless real-world examples of business intelligence used by renowned brands and setting a new benchmark in the market. I’ve mentioned some of the case studies of the popular brands below.

1. Social Media Data

Social media is the most significant domain for businesses to market their products. Many of the target audiences of every business domain use one or the other platform on social media, so a significant presence can help yield the best results. Coca-Cola did the same by peeking into the actions of their social media followers, seeing what kind of content people post with their products. Moreover, they also try to infer who drinks their beverages the most and which location prefers which flavor. All this information helps create discounts and offers specific to the target audience.

That is why there are a few beverages and flavors under coca cola family, which you only find at specific locations and not everywhere else.

2. Viewer Details

Another remarkable example of BI helping a business flourish is the OTT platform Netflix. They study the actions of their visitors to improvise their viewing experience and earn satisfied customers. When viewer finds everything, they are interested in and love the overall experience, they are more likely to stick to the platform and invest in its subscriptions.

What Netflix does is, checks the search history of every viewer on the platform to figure out what they like to watch. Using this information, Netflix offers suggestions of shows or movies the viewers would like to watch. It will save viewers from boring research and offer them the content of their interest without searching for it. This feature attracts more people to the platform and keeps the existing ones glued to it, making them invest in their subscription plans.

3. Purchase History

Starbucks is a renowned brand across the globe, and it would do anything to entertain its customers. They also use their data to plan their growth strategies using the best BI tools. The invoice generated for each consumer has many details about the person. All these details get stored in the systems, and the business analysts then mine this data to fetch fruitful information.

So, if you are a loyal Starbucks customer, they will know about your preferred drinks, how often you buy their stuff, and your birthdays! All this information helps them provide the most relevant offers and discounts to the customers to attract more customers and retain their existing ones.

4. Studying Consumer Details

Walmart is a leading retail supermarket that offers every possible household utility in one place. They place things on the racks, and people only must pick what they want. It is their product placement strategy that can increase their chances of sales. If they know what items attract the buyers, they can place the same products in the front and increase their sales. To make these decisions, Walmart studies consumer data and fetches information about purchase histories. They determine which products are bestsellers and the least preferred ones among consumers. Moreover, they will also learn about how often the same customer buys an item.

Using all these details, Walmart creates its store plan and discounts its customers. Moreover, BI also help them find details about their loyal customers, and they keep in touch with them by sending them alerts for unique discounts on special occasions. All this promotes the Walmart business significantly, and their sales graph improves.

5. Real-Time Data

Rental cabs have gained a lot of popularity in recent years, and Uber is a success story. They fetch real-time data on traffic, demand for cabs, and much more to decide the surgeon's fair. For example, you must have noticed that your Uber shows a rise in the fair during peak office hours. It happens because the demand for cabs increases during this time and the company prefer taking passengers who do not mind paying more.

This way, the company made a lot of profit and set its benchmark in the rental cab market. It is an effective BI strategy that helps them fetch real-time data and segregate it into the information using which they can make significant business decisions.

These are a few examples of companies using business intelligence to excel in the market and create their benchmark. It has given them tremendous revenue growth, and you can experience the same in your business if you incorporate BI in your current model.

6. Decentralization

The world’s retail chain incorporation adopted a decentralized BI system where every store manager manages to obtain and perform analysis on sales information in a real-time basis. Such empowerment facilitated enhancement of decision making within local centers thus boosting the sales and pleasing the customers.

7. KPI Creation

One of the largest beverage companies worked to establish the performance of the new product categories by using the following KPIs. With respect to the targets like sales growth rate, market share, and customer feedback, the firm was able to know which products to retain or expand and which products required more attention, hence enhancing their product mix.

8. Financial Control

The generalized global enterprise leverages BI tools to keep different organizational segments in check financially. The company can understand the overall performance, find areas for efficient spending, and meet the legal demands when the data is gathered and analyzed from various units.

9. Automated Internal Structure

An example of the use of automated BI systems refers to a large e-commerce organization that applies BI systems to optimize the organization’s processes. Computerized systems of recording and procuring inventories, orders, and customer relations improve the functionality of the company as it scales and diminishes mistakes affecting the consumers.

10. Inventory Control

A case of a fashion retailer using BI for the management of inventories. The retailer daily manage its stocks, consistent with its sales data and analyzing market trends, which ultimately results to reduction of piled up stocks, and at the same time makes sure that it is stocked with the right inventory for its stores.

11. Better Market Analysis

A consumer goods manufacturers undertakes detailed market analysis with the assistance of highly developed BI solutions. Understanding the consumers’ actions, competitive responses, and changes in the market helps the company in altering its marketing approach and service provision to retain the leadership position.

12. Self-Service BI

An entertainment streaming service then offers ‘self-service BI tools’ that the employees can use to solve queries on their own without having to consult the IT department. The democratization of data has also brought more creativity and quicker solutions in the firm.

13. Massive Data Visualization

A music streaming platform creates giants visualisation for exploring the large dataset of users’ activity. Thus, by using the data visualization approach, the platform is able to provide users with highly relevant content that is likely to interest them most based on their usage patterns of the service.

14. Exploring Market Opportunities

An example of using BI is an electric vehicle manufacturing firm can use this tool in the discovery of new business opportunities in relation to trends in renewable energy and electric vehicles. Such a strategy has proved useful in not only the effective competition with its rivals but also the constant improvements of the products offered by the company.

15. Tools for Sales Intelligence

A CRM software providing company uses own BI tools to improve sales knowledge and information. In this way, with the help of the data obtained by analytical systems on customers’ behavior, purchasing, and sales, the company assists the clients to fine-tune their sales forces and increase the effectiveness of the actual sales.

16. Internal Reporting for Teams

A technology company utilizes BI for reporting where it is imperative that various teams of the company obtain factual and relevant information. Namely, increased transparency leads to improved cooperation, problem-solving, and the achievement of company objectives.

17. Effective Resource Planning

An engineering and technology company applies BI solutions in its resource planning activities. Through analyzing the project data, resources and demand for those resources, a company is able to properly allocate their resources within a project and thus lower its costs while increasing its project cycle time.

18. Improved Productivity

An example of the BI implementation lies in improved productivity in different processes of the semiconductor manufacturer. Preliminary analysis of production data and signals about performance indicators helps to find the constraints on the material and implement measures to eliminate them, which contributes to the achievement of effective production results.

19. Database Creation/Records

A firm in the business of providing enterprise software uses BI for detailed databases’ development as well as records keeping. One of the benefits arising from the data centralization approach is the provision of reliable data for the company’s business units, which helps to eliminate data discrepancies across functions.

20. Better Brand Value

A sporting apparel firm uses BI to boost its brand equity through proactive examination of customers ’ attitude and market trends. Such an approach is effective in managing the company’s marketing communications since it facilitates more specific and targeted campaigns, higher customer interaction, and enhanced brand image.

Applications of BI

Business Intelligence (BI) applications are versatile tools used across different industries. In finance, BI aids in financial analysis, risk assessment, and performance monitoring, facilitating informed strategic decisions.

Healthcare benefits from BI by enhancing patient care through the analysis of clinical data and optimizing resource allocation. Retailers leverage BI to understand consumer behavior, optimize inventory, and personalize marketing strategies.

In manufacturing, BI contributes to supply chain optimization, production planning, and quality control. Human resources departments use BI for talent management, workforce planning, and employee performance analysis. E-commerce relies on BI for customer segmentation, personalized recommendations, and fraud detection. Educational institutions employ BI to enhance student performance analysis and streamline administrative processes.

In essence, BI applications are integral across sectors, providing tailored solutions to extract actionable insights, streamline operations, and fuel strategic decision-making.

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Why Is Business Intelligence Important?

You saw how companies across the globe use BI to power their business and improve their sales charts. You also must have figured out that it can accomplish great things for your business. I have listed a few more advantages, which you can enjoy through an effective business intelligence strategy to give you better clarity about why it is a crucial aspect of your business.

1. Better Customer Insights

BI helps fetch better and more detailed customer insights with elaborate tools and techniques. You can mine the available data and segregate it into various categories to extract the required information. For example, a simple invoice can give you information about the product and the consumer with the apt use of commands provided by the BI tools.

2. Reliable Information

You can trust the information you see in the reports generated by the BI tools. Companies across the globe make their crucial decisions based on the information they find in these reports. However, you would have to ensure using a trusted tool.

3. Real-Time Data

You read in the business intelligence use cases that companies like Uber use their real-time data to provide better customer services. It is one of the most significant advantages of BI as the business gets to know the current data insights to provide immediate help or assistance to the customers. Due to this, they can earn a better market reputation for your business.

4. Competitive Edge

When you have a hold over all your business operations, know your audience inside out, and earn satisfied customers, you get an edge over your competitors. BI helps you achieve all these goals, helping you stand out from your competition and create a hold over the market.

5. Efficient Business Plans

Efficient and productive business strategies require relevant information and insights about the business. BI strategies provide this information after digging deeper into the raw data units you sourced. Based on this information, you can see where your business lacks and make necessary changes to achieve your business goals.

All these factors clearly indicate how significant it is for a business to indulge in business intelligence techniques. However, you would have to hire the best data analysis and visualization professionals to see a promising improvement in your sales and revenue. Therefore, ensure that the person you appoint has completed KnowledgeHut Business Intelligence and Visualization Courses. It will assure you that they have the necessary skills and that the information they generate will be reliable enough to make significant business decisions.

How to Improve Your Business Intelligence to Make Your Company Prosper?

Once you finalize incorporating business intelligence into your business, the concern is improvising the strategies to get the best results. You require a proper understanding of the field, techniques, and software tools associated with BI to know what you should introduce in your business to help it prosper. To help you make the right decisions for business growth, we have shared the expert tips you can refer to.

  1. Get clarity on your business goals to create an effective BI strategy. Know what information you need from the data sets you generate daily, as it would help you move in the right direction.
  2. Figure out what information you need from the raw data you gather from various sources. Then, it will make the segregation convenient, and there is no need to deal with unwanted data entries.
  3. Hire the best data analysis professionals from the market to support your BI strategies. These people have hands-on experience with reliable tools and techniques that can help in efficient data visualization and mining. Hiring them for the job will save a lot of your time, and you can rest assured that the reports generated are highly reliable.
  4. Audit your BI strategies often to ensure they work fine and produce desired results. Audits help keep a keen eye on the BI strategies and verify if you are moving in the right direction or need changes.

These strategies are fruitful in setting up the BI strategies that would eventually help your business prosper. So plan of action considering these tips, and watch your business grow!

Pro Tips to Boost Your Business Intelligence Skills

BI is a much-in-demand skill, so almost every organization hires skilled professionals to conduct business intelligence operations. They need somebody with a thorough understanding of the domain and better familiarity with the tools and techniques that support data visualization and analytics operations.

If you want to pursue a career in this domain, it is fruitful to keep working on improving your BI skills. But, before you get hands-on experience with the projects, you can go for certification courses in this domain. The trusted course providers will train you in the trending tools and techniques that will make your journey as a BI professional smooth and fruitful. So, keep doing these certifications and open doors for better opportunities in your career.

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Conclusion

I hope this examples of business intelligence article will help you you gain a clearer understanding of how BI can drive business success. BI has become a hot field with tons of job opportunities. If you want to grab these chances, beef up your resume with certifications in data visualization and business intelligence. It shows employers you've got the skills to contribute to their success.
In this competitive job market, standing out is key. Make your CV shine by emphasizing your ability to turn data into useful insights and contribute to smart marketing strategies. This not only helps you land a job but sets you on a path for a successful career.
Investing in certifications isn't just about getting a job; it's a strategy for long-term success. It makes you more appealing to employers, leading to better job offers and propelling your career forward. In the world of BI, staying skilled and certified is the way to go.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1 . What is the goal of business intelligence?

The primary goal of business intelligence is to turn raw data into useful information to support crucial decision-making. Through BI tools, companies can get access to the required information based on which they can make the best decisions.

2 . What are the 4 concepts of business intelligence?

The four concepts of the pillars on which entire business intelligence operations work are:

3 . What is meant by business intelligence?

Business intelligence is the domain related to data visualization and the mining process. Under this, you can gather raw data and turn it into useful information using various data analysis tools.

4 . Is Excel a business intelligence tool?

Yes. It is an industry favourite business intelligence tool that companies have used for years and continue to use.

5 . What are business intelligence examples?

Data decentralization, market analysis, maintaining data records, and resource planning are a few examples of business intelligence. Any aspect of a business domain involving data in it is a perfect example of BI.

Mansoor Mohammed

Business Agility Expert

Mansoor Mohammed is a dynamic and energetic Enterprise Agile Coach, P3M & PMO Consultant, Trainer, Mentor, and Practitioner with over 20 years of experience in Strategy Execution and Business Agility. With a background in Avionics, Financial Services, Banking, Telecommunications, Retail, and Digital, Mansoor has led global infrastructure and software development teams, launched innovative products, and enabled Organizational Change Management. As a results-driven leader, he excels in collaborating, adapting, and driving partnerships with stakeholders at all levels. With expertise in Change Management, Transformation, Lean, Agile, and Organizational Design, Mansoor is passionate about aligning strategic goals and delivering creative solutions for successful business outcomes. Connect with him to explore change, Agile Governance, implementation delivery, and the future of work.