A new and insightful guide by Sales-i highlighting the main 7 reasons why your company needs business intelligence, especially for those within the manufacturing industry. Read on for everything you need to know. http://www.sales-i.com

1. 7 SIGNS
YOU NEED BUSINESS
INTELLIGENCE
MANUFACTURERS
A publication of

2. Most businesses haven’t even heard about
Business Intelligence, but most need it.“
“
The pressure within the manufacturing industry of late has
been astronomical. With a steady increase in globalization,
a stagnating economy and a customer that only continues
to expect more, manufacturers of all shapes and sizes are
finding themselves in somewhat troubled waters.
In such a turbulent and competitive industry, now is the
time to leverage technology, extracting value from every
corner of your business in order to get and stay ahead
of your competition. Traditional ERP and CRM solutions
alone are no longer enough. But combining two is where
the magic really starts to happen.
Business Intelligence (BI) solutions automate the task
of analyzing data, providing a better understanding of
company performance, creating a proactive sales culture
offering a complete customer view for the entire business
and streamlining the sales and marketing process.
If you’re finding yourself sat on the fence of whether to
introduce BI to your business or not, here are the 7 hard-
hitting signs that you need it.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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3. 7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
1. Business is booming
Great news! Growth is something that every company
strives for but once you’ve gone through the difficult
period as a start up and established yourself in a bustling
marketplace, serious growth is the next leap towards
success. Right now, you’re faced with a great opportunity
to cement your place in the manufacturing industry, so
don’t let it slip away.
A growing business means an increase in data,
customers, products, prospects and even employees.
Managing such a data-rich environment is difficult at the
best of times, especially when you have more pressing
business matters to deal with.
BI solutions take all this difficulty away, happily feeding on
the heaps of data that you’re producing and crunching
it down into instant insights and identifying valuable
opportunities to keep your business growing with very
little input on your part.
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4. 2. Poor flow of information
In companies of any size, communication is often one of the biggest challenges any
employee will face. Staying abreast of key developments, sales progress, customer
interactions and even top selling products is a constant battle.
Managing the flow of information is something that every company needs to stay on top of
and the only way to control a data-rich organization is through technology.
With the help of BI, your entire business will be reading from the same page. Most good
BI solutions integrate sales and customer information, so you always have a complete
picture of each interaction, sale and next steps with your customers. There’s little more
embarrassing than calling a customer to make sure they’re enjoying their latest purchase
only to find out they didn’t receive it and are still waiting on a replacement. It doesn’t say a
lot for your customer service either.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers

5. 3. Losing track of sales performance
While it is all well and good that your team is hitting targets every month,
are they really extracting the most profitability and value out of each deal
that they close? Or are they simply making the ‘easy sale’ and offering the
cheapest possible option?
At the end of the day, a sale is a sale and most salespeople tend not
to spend hours rifling through sales data in order to find out their top
grossing line items due to the time that it takes to find such information.
With this lack of insight, it often becomes difficult to keep track of sales
performance, across endless spreadsheets, documents and scraps of
paper.
Streamlining processes and saving valuable selling time is one of the big
benefits of BI. Not only does it flag up your top grossing products, but
actively identifies cross and switch-selling opportunities to extract the
most value and profitability from each deal your team closes.
4. Complicated supply chain
There is no doubt about it; supply chains are becoming more
sophisticated. As a manufacturer, you work directly with vendors,
distributors, partners, retailers and end users all in tandem. Each of
these groups will have varying needs and expectations from you as
their manufacturer. As individual accounts, these are difficult to manage
sufficiently without computer software of some sort in place.
For any supply chain to operate at its best, information must be shared
across the business for a complete 360-degree view of operations. From
customer interactions to sales activity and overall business performance,
everything can be monitored from beginning to end with a BI tool.
You’ll be able to spot areas for improvement while promoting
collaboration and real-time data sharing across your entire operation.
With valuable information at your fingertips, any manufacturer will be able
to optimize their service levels and encourage customer loyalty. Supply
chains can fall apart quickly if every corner of your business isn’t being
kept in the loop with what is happening in neighboring business units.
Hitting sales targets is all well and good, but are you extracting the
most profitability and value out of each deal?“
“
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers

6. 7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
5. Increased competition
As the manufacturing industry continues to swell with
new companies springing up almost every day, the
pressure facing domestic companies is also building due
to the growth in globalization. At home, competitors are
no longer your only problem, as international companies
continue to pinch your share of the local customer wallet
by doing things at a far lower cost.
The key to succeeding in a bustling international market
is the insight to act ahead of your competitors. Using
BI to spot valuable sales opportunities while providing
outstanding service is a must and will leave your
competition hastily putting together a comeback, while
you’re closing the deal and moving onto the next.
Predicting sales trends and identifying opportunities isn’t
easy to do manually, but a BI tool can respond to your
questions and provide you with a targeted sales plan that
will get your customers on your side. BI will extract sales
ready, actionable data in seconds, arming you and your
team with the knowledge to outsmart the competition
every single time.
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7. 6. Improve sales reporting process
Reporting of any kind is tedious, but it has to be done in some way or another. Wasting
hours at the end of every month to produce a complete overview of sales, activity and
profits is time that could be better spent elsewhere.
Business Intelligence solutions streamline the sales reporting process and do most of the
hard work for you. Since BI feeds on your sales and customer data, you hardly have to lift
a finger to produce rich sales reports. Include as much or as little detail as you need and
you’re done in seconds rather than hours. Your boss need never know you took the easy
way out and got your BI solution to do it for you.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
65%
direct sales
35% channel
sales

8. 7. Forecast customer demands
As in any industry, forecasting the spend trends of your customers is key to effectively
managing cash flow and inventory levels accurately. The manufacturing industry in
particular is built on processes and being able to respond to changes in the market
almost instantly.
Making accurate forecasts to account for shifting demand patterns is more
important now than it has ever been before. Not only will you be able to
align your manufacturing operations to meet customer orders, but you’ll be
avoiding lost sales with the insight to accurately plan for the future.
With a BI tool in place, you can monitor the spend patterns and
trends of each of your customers, while accurately managing the
manufacture of goods to meet this demand. You’ll be able to identify
when you need to increase or decrease production at specific times
throughout the year, spot trends towards any new products and
even create expert sales and marketing campaigns to sell your most
profitable lines.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers

9. www.sales-i.com/request-demo
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sales-i is a powerful cloud based Business Intelligence solution that joins
your ERP data together with your CRM data to give you actionable sales
information for each and every customer. We turn a good sales person
into a great one.
7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers7 Signs You Need BI: Manufacturers
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