A study completed by the Aberdeen Group investigated the impact of good business intelligence on company performance during this economic downturn. There were three classifications; best-in-class, which has an 11% increase in operating profit and a 96% customer retention rate, Industry average performers which had a 5% decrease in operating profit and an 88% customer retention rate, and Laggards which had a 14% decrease in operating profit and only a 67% customer retention rate. The critical measurement that the Aberdeen Group was evaluating was employee access to business intelligence. Best-in-Class had access to BI for 56% of their workforce, Industry Average had only 36% and Laggards were less than18%.

The companies that gave over half of their workforce business intelligence from which they could drive activity got pressure to increase output to meet customer demand along with pricing pressures. The rest were dealing with aligning cost with falling revenue forecasts. Half as many Best-in Class companies were dealing with falling sales as all others. Cash is still king. Best-in-Class companies used business intelligence information to better understand their receivables issues. Business intelligence can be used in many ways to assure cash is not compromised. Managing “days sales outstanding” to insures that cashing is coming in at the same or faster rate that cash is going out is critical.

Business intelligence also helps businesses track sales back to marketing leads and marketing cost. This is a two edge sword from the standpoint of both concentrating on the highest value opportunities while reducing the spending on non-performing cost. Best-in-class companies make the best use of performance dashboards and scorecard tools, uniform data collecting and cleansing and enterprise performance management.