Why Business Intelligence is Important for Your Food Company

The purchase and sale of food is one of the most complex issues in today's economy because there are so many different factors involved. If you want to truly understand how your business is performing and why, you’ll need to continuously monitor it using a good management information system.  A Business Intelligence (BI) solution can help your food company understand its business processes, and make them run more efficiently and effectively. Management information is important for all levels of an organization, to make sure that decisions can be made quickly and correctly. But what exactly is Business Intelligence, and what can it mean for a food company?

Business Intelligence Puts Focus on Information

Business Intelligence's primary goal is to translate existing data into information that can be interpreted. This information forms the basis on which you make operational, tactical and strategic decisions within your company, and therefore also the business operations. The translation of such data takes shape in reports and analyses. What makes Business Intelligence so unique is that data is used from different locations, both inside and outside the company. 

Essentially, Business Intelligence analyzes business processes, and helps you optimize them. The result is that you can make better decisions about, among other things, the sourcing of ingredients, the control of production, the way stocks are managed and the distribution of goods and services.

Business Intelligence also helps your company to make strategically based decisions. This makes it easier to determine which market is most interesting, how to produce more efficiently, how logistics can be optimized and which customer groups can deliver the best margins. These are all questions that make an extremely important contribution to the success of a company.

Data Warehousing with Business Intelligence

As mentioned, a Business Intelligence solution reports on and analyzes information that is available within or outside your company. This information comes from your ERP system and, if applicable, from other software such as a CRM, financial program, logistics or financial software, integrated business software, or planning software. A Business Intelligence solution extracts all relevant data from these systems, storing it in one central location in order to better connect it to each other. This is called a 'data warehouse'.

BI Implementation at Every Possible Level

Business Intelligence is often seen as something only for large companies and management, but that’s not the case at all. Business Intelligence is also crucial in lower management positions and operational areas in order to help decision-making. For example, components such as customer contact, financial evaluations, logistical issues and production of goods all benefit from the use of Business Intelligence, as such systems are becoming increasingly multifunctional.

Power BI for Visualization

All insights into business information can be made visual with Power BI. Having a simple and clear overview of the data is vital to making real-time adjustments to operational processes that are critical to improving business performance. With Power BI, you can quickly create the right insights on dashboards that are easy to distribute to your entire organization.

If you want to get more out of your business and all the processes involved, then using a Business Intelligence solution is an interesting next step. In any case, more insight and more accuracy in analyzing and reporting information results in more effective business operations and more long-term success. Discover how now with Aptean. Contact us today!