The Path to Actionable Intelligence

Introduction

Actionable Intelligence. Two words that not enough executives are aware of, at least when placed side by side. What is it? Why is it important? In today’s business world, it has become increasingly important to be able to make intelligent decisions to continue your journey on the roadmap to success.

As we were taught in history class, learning from the past allows us to make better decisions and lead ourselves to a better place. Similarly, studying the data stored within your organization, whether past or present, will enable you to learn from successes and failures and make confident decisions for the future.

Transactional data and the creation of reports from that data have been a critical staple of modern business. Whether you are the local family-owned diner or a global conglomerate, like Coca-Cola, transactional data is constantly looked upon as the base data for organizational evolution.

HR, Finance, and Sales reports are just a few analyzed reports to make short-term and long-term decisions. This is Actionable Intelligence. The discovery and understanding of your experiences, both positive and negative, gives depth and strength to the decisions you make.

What is Actionable Intelligence?

Actionable intelligence is data that can be followed up on, with the additional implication that a tactical plan should be initiated to make positive use of the data collected. It is often executed on Big Data, where there are large amounts of data. When decision-making is done with this data, it gives very accurate outcomes. Actionable intelligence helps in the future planning of an organization and can improve an organization’s market performance.

Unlike Business Intelligence, which provides a quicker evaluation of the data, actionable intelligence takes the procedure a step further. It gives a precise strategy based on the earlier experiences of an organization; this approach produces the best possible results.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is the goal we all strive for. The roadmap to success is discovered and built off our Actionable Intelligence. Those decisions determine the growth and prosperity of your organization and can be seen as the ceiling of your potential. But what if that data is not up-to-date? What then? A decision based on data that is not current is not only detrimental to the future outlook, but it’s also just plain dumb… Having a system that continuously refreshes your transactional data automatically is a requirement today for two reasons: first, it is a tremendous time-saver. Second, it allows you to make the most efficient decisions to take your organization’s current state into the future successfully!

Finding the right tool to harness your data and transform it into Actionable Intelligence can be a daunting task. From pricing to the look and feel to its ability to connect to your various data sources effectively, there are many different makes and models to choose from. But how do you know which one is right for you?

Some of the criteria for this dilemma can be determined by personal preferences, which is the most accessible place to start. If you are comfortable utilizing Microsoft Excel as your frontend, find a tool that works in conjunction with that application. If robust charts and dashboards are a requirement, choose the tool that will effectively display your data how you want. If you are on a budget, make sure you look at tools that fit your price range. Do you need your data on the go? Look for a tool that provides you with a powerful mobile app.

It is a challenging journey to reach the end of the rainbow. Still, the troubles and headaches can be easily avoided by supplementing a powerful business intelligence tool inside of your infrastructure. Your end goal should be to discover your own Actionable Intelligence.

Why SplashBI?

SplashBI provides access to your live data in various systems, all in one framework. SplashBI goes a step beyond transactional reporting by also building robust visualizations from that data in the form of charts and dashboards. Regardless of your position within the company’s hierarchy, it is a daunting task to refresh data throughout disparate systems and generate your reports from that data.

Thus, Actionable Intelligence is best leveraged when used by the entire organization.