Let's talk about BI (Business Intelligence)?

After the economic drift of recent years, we're finally getting the bill that took so long to arrive. First off, congratulations to everyone who managed to weather the rough stretch that was the two-year recession Brazil went through (we haven't been through this since 1930, when Hebe was still an adult). It wasn't easy for anyone!

Anyway, here we talk about business, how to increase revenue, how to improve your operation, and so on. Politics I'll leave to Facebook (HA!).

Before talking about the “how”, I'll tell you about the “what”. Stay tuned.

BI (Business Intelligence) for Everyone

There are two ways to manage your business: you can go on intuition, analyzing case by case and praying your guess hits the target; or you invest in analysis and processing of your business data and of your target market, so you can understand the path to take amid the dense thicket of competitors.

The second one, my friends, is Business Intelligence, or BI.

Implementing BI in your business has become a priority for anyone who wants to stand out. With it, you can turn every process inside your organization into metrics. From acquiring new customers to serving long-time ones, BI helps you understand the best path to follow.

In other words, by investing in this technology, you end up saving money thanks to the optimization it brings to your business. Not to mention that, with it, your forecasts go from wild guesses to sure things. That's because, after collecting and analyzing your operation's data, you need to translate the numbers into charts that are easy to read. That way, you'll have your data available at any time, in a format that makes it easy to understand and communicate the scope of your operation.

But of course, before getting access to all that, you need to understand what you have to collect. After all, without data, analysis and processing become impossible. Let's go!

Which Data to Collect for Your Business's BI?

This one's easy, simple, and straight to the point. The answer is: all the data you can. Não chora, o difícil é começar, mas depois que engata o difícil vai ser parar ou voltar para a vida pré-BI.

But, instead of staying in this liberal arts student abstraction, I'll use a bar to put the examples in context. I'll tell you which data to collect to understand your business's operation and sales – after all, what an owner really likes is money; the one who likes a booming Facebook page is the marketing guy.

For sales:

• Price, Cost, and Profit – The management trinity, the foundation of every business! Always keep these numbers up to date, as well as market inflation so you can analyze whether your profit margin is high enough or if there's room to bump it up.
• Quantity sold e quantity purchased – This couple, which should always walk hand in hand (but, as we know, not every relationship is perfect), will help you plan your business in ways you never imagined before. If you analyze the quantity sold of each product month by month, you'll be able to predict how much you'll need to buy the next time you call your supplier. That way, it'll be easy to cut the total costs of your operation and the waste of products. In short, that means more profit.

For operations:

• Dwell Time – cross-referencing data is necessary to deepen your understanding of the business. On its own, a customer's dwell time doesn't mean much, but if you connect that information with the number of items consumed, for example, you can start to understand your team's efficiency!
• Number of customers served – this metric also helps you understand how many customers each of your employees can serve during the shift. The number of customers served will be the basis for calculations and analyses about how much each employee produces. Dessa forma, você pode set the minimum you expect from your team, and reward or push them as needed.
• Ticket médio – understanding how much, on average, your customers spend is essential to know which of your customers are the most and least profitable, as well as what they usually consume. That way, you can run promotions and training aimed at optimizing your team.
• How long it takes to make the dishes – knowing how much time it takes for the dishes to be made is important for several reasons. With this information you can start to understand whether the problem is in the prep or in the delivery. Sem contar que, sabendo isso, fica muito easier to plan for peak hours, plus seeing the maximum number of dishes you can serve in certain periods. If you don't know the limit of your team's operational capacity, there's no way to know whether the operation is bearing all the fruit it could!

With this information, you can understand the size of your operation as it really is. This raw data about your operation shows you where you are right now, but it doesn't show you the roadmap for increasing gross revenue. Usually, the points I raised above are the benchmarks you'll raise once you start implementing Business Intelligence in your business.

Want to increase your average ticket of your customers? Then you need to understand what they consume, what they like, and how to serve them better. Quer increase profit? Start looking at where you can cut waste, whether by optimizing your team, or cutting losses from ingredients past their expiration date.

There are plenty of ways to cross-reference data to start seeing what can be changed and optimized at your restaurant, bar, grocery store, or any other business you have. Not to mention that, with well-built spreadsheets, you can visualize all of it quickly, especially once you start making charts!

But we'll talk about that in the next post!