BI is more than dashboards and reports!

The term ‘Business Intelligence’ (BI) is very generic and often thought of as “dashboards and reports.” Defining BI for construction and real estate is far more complex than that. One of the better business explanations comes from insideBIGDATA. They state, “Business intelligence (BI) is the only way to make data-driven decisions and ensure the long-term stability of your organization.”

According to Gartner:

By definition, BI represents an umbrella term that includes applications, infrastructure, tools, and best practices that enable access to and analysis of information to improve and optimize decisions and performance.

Three ways to use BI to optimize performance

It’s important to think about BI in broader terms than dashboards. Improve and optimize decisions and performance with Anterra’s top three suggestions:

  1. Design dashboards and reports based on the role of the person using them. Consider the purpose of each component of a reporting package. Consider the design of dashboards and reports should support the “use cases” of the (persona) roles using it. What decisions does a project manager make or what risks does a property manager need to monitor?
  2. The processes to create the data underlying reports need to be consistent and accurate — “garbage in, garbage out.”
  3. Information needs to be timely. For example — a balance should be projected in closing of the GL month end — between making accrual guesses and waiting for information to come in. Issuing financial statements on the 10th of the next month with a few accruals is better than waiting until the 25th so budget variances can be acted upon earlier.

Actionable info by construction role

Anterra enjoys working with industry leading construction and real estate companies to refine reporting requirements into clear, actionable information for each major role in the organization. Give your team the information to help them perform efficiently! As a result, they will spend more time working for the business and less time fighting fires.

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