Refocusing Business Intelligence on Client Needs not Wants
When my partner, Tadd Wood, and I started Contemporary Analysis we decided that we were going to focus on developing a great final product, instead of focusing offering our products at a low cost or focusing great customer service. Not that our prices or our customer services is lacking, but that they are not our focus. We did this because I learned from owning previous businesses that people care about price before they sign the contract, they care about customer service when the product is being delivered, but once the final product is delivered all they care about is the quality of deliverable.
We identified three key principals that we use when building our final deliverables:
- We focus on providing answers to our clients most important business questions.
- Our methodology is designed to provide reliable answers to real businesses.
- We provide answers to our clients’ questions so that they get immediate tasks to improve their business in addition to greater understanding.
The core of these principals is to focus on our clients needs and not their wants. This has been really difficult because what our clients need is answers to their business questions. While it is easy to get distracted by flashy tools, cool visualization and interactive interfaces, at the end of the day our client’s just want answers to their business questions. This is why we decided to refocus business intelligence as presented in the business industry.
I think this is a great subject to speak on. It is interesting to look at some of the more common focus points of businesses: delivering excellence, delivering low cost products or services, or delivering great customer service. I believe it is very beneficial for a company, especially a newer one, to focus on one core competency. All too often, companies will try and focus on all three, and end up mediocre at best on any particular one. But, if a company is able to focus it's time and resources to that one core competency it feels it's best at, there lies an enormous competitive advantage. If I had one more thing to add, it would be to the idea of focusing on client's needs. As you said, this is huge in any business, and I think something that sets companies apart is being able to foresee needs that the client isn't aware of. A company can really deliver a great final product if it is able to help the client in unforeseen ways and really go above and beyond just doing enough to complete the customer's request.