Business Intelligence is one of the most important aspects of business, and almost all businesses perform some business intelligence, but almost all business make a pitiful show of it. BI is the difference between a decent profit, and almost making a profit. What is Business Intelligence? Business Intelligence is using data that is already in your grasp to increase customer satisfaction, gain new customers, and learn where trends are heading. Let's go through an example of how a non-technology business can increase its profits through the use of Business Intelligence.

   Barberella Barber Shop keeps a simple notebook with the names of each customer, their address, phone number, and preferred haircut. The owner of this business decides to hire a company (such as ATH) to use this data to increase sales without a lot of time and effort on his part daily. ATH takes his notebook and through OCR or manual data entry creates a database. With that database, and the hairdressers accounting software create a system that automatically calls, or mails customers reminders of their next hair appointment, and if they haven't set an appointment calls and reminds them that their hair might be getting shaggy, and to press 1 to set an appointment for a time that the barber hasn't blocked off. The system also allows customers to opt out of ever being called, because some customers will react negatively.

   At the end of the year Barbarella Barber Shop decides it's time to hire another barber because business is booming. Again, BI is used to make a great hiring decision. A simple report at the end of the year shows that in January there was only one customer that asked for the pompadour haircut. By December there were 7.6 percent of customers asking for pompadour haircuts. The owner can therefore establish a trend based on hard data, and look for a barber that is great at cutting the pompadour.

   The owner can also mine his database using custom written reports to determine which of his barbers were the most productive, and which ones sat around and ate donuts. This could be handy if he only had 6 chairs, but was running into a problem fitting all of his customers into the allotted time slots. The answer would be to get a more productive barber in the lowest performing chair, or get the barber using that chair to step it up!

   If the owner had to expand his business to another location, a great report to run would be to see where the bulk of his clientele is coming from, or better yet where his new customers are coming from. There is no reason to move to a new spot where most of your customers currently are if the majority of your future customers will come from a different area.

   He who has the most information will trump he who doesn't, so try and put your business in the drivers seat of success. Zig Ziglar once said that "If you aim at nothing you will hit it every time." Business Intelligence, and thinking about how to apply it to better serve the customer will help you to aim at the right target instead of nothing.