Have you found yourself in a data whirlwind? Are you now faced with problems trying to digest and properly use the massive amount of raw data you have available?

Data is captured throughout nearly every part of your business, from marketing, to finance, to human resources, to sales, and operations. Being equipped with this information provides you valuable insights, enables you to make better business decisions, and facilitates smart growth. But are you managing it effectively?

Here are three business areas that benefit from business analytics:

1. Sales and marketing operations

As a SME, attracting and retaining clients is a top priority. Luckily, omnichannel marketing makes it possible for your company to reach more potential customers, through a wider variety of channels, than ever before. But this also means you’re collecting an unprecedented amount of data throughout the sales cycle.

You may not have the resources to use this data in a valuable way today. Employing business analytics automates the process of collecting and visualizing sales and marketing data. In turn, you can better leverage customer data to run personalized marketing campaigns, or use year-over-year sales data to forecast sales pipeline.

2. Inventory and sourcing management

Once you've obtained clients, you must ensure you can deliver your products and services accordingly. As your company grows, sourcing and inventory management becomes increasingly difficult. You don’t want to fulfill orders late, or have to offer refunds because you don’t have sufficient stock.

It’s also important to be able to easily detect and track changes in customer purchasing trends to predict future sales fluctuations. Having too much inventory at a time of low demand is just as bad for your bottom line as having too little inventory at a time of high demand.

3. Pricing and profitability

Another challenge you face as a growing small or medium is business is understanding how to price products and services. Having a basis to predict buyer readiness becomes crucial to ensuring ROI and maintaining a profitable business.

We have personally seen how important data analytics is for companies like yours in trying to predict consumer buying behavior. Wouldn’t it be great to have a crystal ball to help determine not only when your customers are ready to buy, but at what price - or discount - your customers are willing to buy? (We need that crystal ball, too, because it would be worth a fortune!) Instead, what we do have - and what we know firsthand works - is data analytics.

Solve your problems with SAP Analytics

SAP BusinessObjects Analytics and SAP S/4HANA software suites can provide you with analytical tools to gain insights from Big Data, including mobile and IoT channels. SAP's predictive analytics give your top decision makers the input they need to locate customers and efficiently handle CRM activates. With SAP analytics you gain real-time access to valuable data for making accurate sourcing and inventory decisions based on customer buying behavior.

SAP's business analytic tools can help you link data sets, like demographic and transaction information. This allows your "number crunching department" to synthesize data to more accurately price goods and services based on real consumer buying behavior.

SAP S/4HANA enterprise resource planning (ERP) suite provides predictive suggestions for corporate performance management. This is a powerful business analytic tool that will empower you to efficiently manage your administrative tasks. Managing travel, HR, and customer service issues/service orders with intelligent ERP is possible on-premise or in the cloud.

Element Five Solutions and SAP

Servicing the small-to-medium market segment is the heart of what we do at Element Five Solutions. We don't like to brag, but we are SAP experts, and we can help make your company stronger and more profitable. Request a demo from us, or learn more at www.e5sol.com/analytics.html.