Business leaders love data.

When they have it, they’re able to make sound decisions with confidence. But when they don’t, they’re up all night wondering when their instinct is finally going to fail them—or if it already has.

So it falls on the shoulders of BI and IT experts like you to deliver the data that business leaders are desperate to have. When you give them that data—how and when they want it—you become the knight in shining armor. The clutch player. The data hero.

Read on to discover 2 ways to please any data lover. If you’re interested in what you see here, check out the free executive brief, 5 Ways to Please Your Data Lover, on our Learn Center.

…

Break down silos.

Getting timely, accurate data out of your own department is hard enough; getting what you need from other departments is even worse. Though departments are generally willing to share information, there often aren’t good processes in place to do so, and departmental silos develop.

But despite the inherent difficulty, sharing information across an organization is critical to enhancing its reach, impact and growth. For example, a marketing department needs to track more than just how many leads it pours into the sales funnel. For marketing to measure lead quality and determine where to allocate its budget, it needs information from the likes of sales, finance and operations to evaluate effectiveness:

• What lead types are converting to customers?
• What is the average cost per lead source?
• Which leads have the highest customer lifetime value (CLV)?
• Which clients are the least expensive to get up to speed?

Running a business is rarely a solo operation; when leaders across the organization are on the same page and share much-needed information, then efficiency and smarter business practices are always within reach. When data is tied up in individual departments, however, the entire organization risks losses that could otherwise be avoided.

Make it mobile.

Business leaders don’t just expect to have the ability to do business with a smartphone—they are partially paralyzed if they can’t. In order to do their jobs well, they need data on their own schedule. Whether it’s in a taxi ride to and from the airport or in the hall between meetings, they need the ability to tap into their top metrics wherever and whenever they want.

For example, the chief operating officer of Metro-West Appraisal uses his mobile business intelligence solution to stay connected to his most critical metrics, no matter where he is. He is able to tie together more than 60 territories and see the performance metrics he needs, all in an automated system on his mobile device. And since the data collection is automated, his BI and IT teams aren’t tied up in tedious tasks that take them away from performing deeper analyses of complex data sets.

Mobile data has evolved beyond a “nice-to-have” commodity and has become an operational necessity. BI and IT experts that deliver a mobile business intelligence platform are able to stay ahead of the curve and provide more value to their business leaders than ever before.

Check out 3 more ways to please your data lover when you read the free executive brief on our Learn Center, here.