Business Intelligence & Analytics: What is it?

February 2, 2023

By: Brad Gerick

Business intelligence and analytics is a key facet of modern-day business building.

Leaders at private equity firms, portfolio companies and private and public companies use data to answer questions about their business. This could give them a better understanding of their customer base or product, for example.

What is Business Intelligence and Analytics?

“It’s using very large amounts of, and sometimes real-time data to paint a whole picture of your customers, your business and your products or services,” the founding partner at one of our expert service providers says. “The difference between business intelligence and analytics and maybe traditional financial analysis is the scale at which it happens.”

In the past, business leaders would get information from an old database and manual analyze it in a spreadsheet program. That very spreadsheet fundamentally limits the analysis, according to the data firm’s founding partner, who we’ll call Mike Datus.

“Once you enter the realm of business intelligence or analytics, or data science is sometimes used synonymously, you’re talking about a bigger, more comprehensive, more real-time picture,” Datus says.

One key way to maximize portfolio company performance is with private equity analytics. The right data helps a firm make better investment decisions while maximizing portfolio company performance.

The right information also helps with risk management, and eventually, increasing a portfolio company’s exit value.

Of course, non-PE firms can reap the same benefits to build their business.

Get Top Data Resources for Business Builders

By monitoring key performance indicators and market trends, firms can identify weaknesses. The right data can help develop strategies to address these issues and strengthen a firm’s portco or a company’s operations.

One of the key considerations in BI & analytics is the selection of data sources. As obvious as it may sound, accuracy is a must-have, along with whether the information is up-to-date and aligned with the firm’s overall strategy.

Once the firm knows what it wants to track, it must decide how to securely collect and store that information.

Integrating new private equity analytics programs and tools must be done with existing systems in mind. These might include portfolio management software, investor reporting platforms, website analytics, payroll management and more.

Lastly, and most practically, the data must be accessible for the relevant parties. That means reports that are easy to analyze and share. That way, everyone from partners to C-suite executives to the most junior employee in the organization understands what’s driving the decisions that affect them.

Whether you’re the CTO at an independent company, an interim CFO at a portco, or any other business building role, we have expertly vetted analytics and insights resources on standby.

The BluWave-grade network of service providers have helped hundreds of companies like yours choose, implement and distribute data platforms that have a positive impact on their organization’s value.

Contact us to set up an initial scoping call, and we’ll connect you with two or three best-fit resources for your exact situation within a single business day.