A simple web search suggests that ‘Business intelligence (BI) is the set of tools and systems used to collect and analyze data to gain insights and make informed decisions within an organization1’. This resonates however is that really what I have undertaken in the last 20 years?

Data is more readily available than it ever was but are our insights any clearer? Without a doubt it is now quicker to pull analysis together on demand, I would challenge that not the same level of thought goes into what we are trying to achieve compared to the years before high-speed internet and cloud computing. It was painstaking to pull data and I know I would always go with an attempt to do it right first time or I’d lose hours redoing, which meant the focus on planning was critical. Of course, it never always went right first time and that is how I learnt, as I continue to do so today.

What is the basic recipe in healthcare and pharmaceutical business intelligence? There have always been competing disciplines from primary market research through to secondary research and the use of analytics. I have never really understood why they compete as they really do complement when used at the right time and in the right way. I started my journey at the time of limited sales data that used to be delivered in big black books that needed to be transposed into a database to allow sales and market information to be kept in one place, customer details came from another book that was purchased on subscription and delivered quarterly. I remember cross-matching names from the book to what was in the electronic territory management system, this was the pre-cursor to the CRM (that will become another reflection). 

I will stick with my view that the basics required to be successful are sales data (how am I doing), customer data (who am I interacting with) and market data (where am I competing). Data will often help with what is happening but rarely why it’s happening and that is where the role of primary market research comes in for when the data is lacking or a more in-depth understanding is required. 

With the explosion of data sources created by a digital and omnichannel approach and a shift in the go-to-market (GtM) strategy, business intelligence has the potential to be overwhelmed and drawn into an area of fast delivery of dashboards with a loss of the precision of understanding of what is the question or problem that we are trying to solve as we drown in KPIs, which is ironic as the K represents Key!

Following these reflections, I’m not going to shy away from the question of what I do any more. When asked my simple response will be…

I create an in-depth understanding of business problems, utilise data and technology to create solutions, allowing critical yet quick and confident decision making to have a positive impact on healthcare.

How does this actually happen?

This starts by understanding and appropriately challenging the business problem with active listening and asking good questions to get a holistic view of what the real drivers and outcome is being sought. Sourcing, mining, analysing data and transforming this into information is key. 

Continually curious and asking questions I find out not only what is happening but more importantly why is something happening! This is where the insight is generated, business intelligence is multi-dimensional and not binary. The more information we can connect the richer the insights become.

This is only part of the journey, the analysis needs to live and become actionable, analysis lives or dies through its simplicity for the end user to both understand and interact with. Analysis packages today provide so much functionality that adds every bell and whistle that you really don’t need, often style over substance. 

Success is achieved through clear and concise communication and establishing yourself as a trusted advisor to the stakeholder supported by data driven insights, delivered in an easily digestible format for action to be taken easily with confidence.

Article sources

1. Coursera.org:  "What Is Business Intelligence? Benefits, Examples, and More | Coursera"
Accessed August 2024