What exactly is Business Intelligence (BI) technology and what are the key benefits?
A core challenge for many retailers is improving overall business efficiency. This technology lets the company analyse its data more closely than ever, whether that be sales figures or financial information. This then lets the owner tailor their processes based on the store's historical performance – using the past to efficiently predict the future.

For example, a retailer can now not only see how much a certain item is selling, but also when it is doing so, from which destination and even to what kind of customer. This in-depth data analysis can bring huge benefits. Not only will it improve planning and therefore increase income, but processes are also optimised so what used to take teams of people and hours of company time, can now be done in minutes and achieved at the click of a button.”

What are the benefits of using it in a very small retail store?
Although BI technology has traditionally been seen as ‘IT for the enterprise’, it is equally as useful for smaller businesses. No matter what size a store is, a familiar problem will be poor communication between its different areas – for example, front of house sales and stock control. Most people in retail will have attended meetings where two of the company's departments – perhaps sales and finance – have produced conflicting figures that don’t match up in any way, making it very difficult for owners to use them to plan for the next month or quarter.

This lack of coordination is in many ways understandable. Retail is an incredibly fast-paced industry, with consumer demand fluctuating continuously, and company owners scrambling around trying to adapt to it. This is especially true of smaller outlets where stock is rarely bought in large quantities, meaning the business has to control inventory levels very tightly or else risk disappointing customers by running out of popular products while having a surplus of others.

To address this, the different areas of a business need to use BI to work together. For instance, if every decision-maker not only has the raw data, but also the analysis to improve future decision-making, that company has a far greater chance of long-term success.

The information retailers are able to extract can be used by all areas of the business. So, finance will have constructed plans around the same data set that purchasing is looking at and sales will find it far easier to point to peaks and troughs in demand – using the BI technology to explain these fluctuations. For example, a retailer selling arts and crafts will be able to use the intelligence to point to a massive sales surge pre-Christmas and a decline a week or so later.

How can retailers ensure they get the most out of theirs?
How you use BI technology can determine how successful it is in aiding your company. This is especially vital for shop owners who, in the current economic climate, need to have one eye on the future – predicting trends, sales cycles and overall performance. In short, you need a fast, easy-to-access look at each area of your business.

However, to get the most out of BI, it’s important that businesses know what can be extracted from the technology. Just putting it in place, but not understanding it or how it relates to the business often means that companies struggle to see the ROI – Return on Investment.

At the end of the day, it is not enough to simply invest in BI, retailers have to align it to their specific company and analyse the data that matters to them. Only then will they be able to optimise the different segments that make up their business.