Rudolf Gaiseb
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and corporations can enhance decision-making and gain a competitive edge in the business world by employing business intelligence (BI) and data analytical (DA) mechanisms.
Experts say these two components are eliminating inefficiencies while solidifying prompt execution and decision-making, especially now that managers and decision-makers do not have time to dig through data to make decisions.
In an interview, the Green Solution’s head of project management office, Bro- Mathew Niikondo, revealed the demand for business intelligence solutions has grown in recent years.
He asserted that organisations often think that BI and DA are accessible only by large international corporations in other countries.
However, SMEs produce data and information too.
“It may be even more applicable to smaller companies, as the smaller set of data is easier to manage. This makes it easier to leverage the data to enhance customer experience, service and product improvements. So, Namibian companies can and should be using these tools,” he advised.
Organisations collect, store and analyse their customers’ data to understand their behaviour, improve their bottom line and serve them.
Through their websites, systems and apps, when you scan a barcode or a quick response code, or process any sort of transaction, more data and information are collected.
Everything is measured and stored quantitatively and qualitatively.
Modern C-level suite management distils vast amounts of data into manageable bite-sized chunks to base their decisions for the organisation.
However, Niikondo cautioned that organisations need to understand how to leverage their raw data and transform it into valuable information.
Knowledge management can feed, leverage and maximise information with the click of a few buttons when informed and prompt decision-making is needed.
“There is so much valuable data floating out there. Namibian companies can gain a competitive edge if they leverage this information correctly by building reliable key performance indicator (KPI) reports or dashboards but also establishing solid foundations that input the KPI reports and dashboards,” he said.
The BI used to build KPI reports and dashboards for businesses is developed based on existing data sources.
An organisation must have clean and reliable data sources that input reports to generate accurate reports and dashboards.
Transforming data requires extensive groundwork.
It requires thorough data cleansing and a robust foundation from which an organisation can build reliable reports, and generate trends and insights with the aid of artificial intelligence.
He noted that “crunching data has become easy with all the tools we have at our disposal. If you know what you are doing, the data is an absolute goldmine for Namibian companies.”
When big data is mishandled, it costs organisations millions, leading to customer dissatisfaction, reputational damage and wasted resources.
It skews operational and sales reports, making it difficult to assess customer activity and profitability accurately.
Niikondo underscored that when inactive or outdated accounts are included in reporting, data becomes unreliable, affecting decision-making and long-term business strategy.
“The last thing you want as an organisation is to generate reports from incorrect raw data. If the data upon which the reports are based are incorrect, decisions undertaken could potentially be wrong. This can negatively impact business as well as service offerings and delivery.
“It is important to have all the data and facts when making any decision. Namibian companies can enhance their decision-making process just by leveraging the data they already have swirling around their company. The tools have become so user-friendly that anyone can use them to their benefit,” he underlined.
Namibia’s cybersecurity sector came into the public eye when Telecom Namibia faced a cyberattack last month.
Over 400 000 public records leaked.
The company utilises data analytics, a component of cybersecurity.
H e s t a t ed companies and organisations in Namibia need to understand that they need many levels of “defence” against hackers and cyberattacks, including training.
-rrgaiseb@ gmail.com