Using Business Intelligence in Small Business

[claudiomarcunha]

Hi all,

I would like to bring Business Intelligence - BI into our discussions.

I know big corporations invest a lot of money in BI but I also know there are ways to apply the concepts using tools that we already have.

I wrote an article about how to apply Business Intelligence in a pizzeria case and would like to know what you think about it.

[The Old Sarge]

No offense intended, but the article seems to state the obvious without any new insights or information. I fail to see any value in it. Am I missing something?

[claudiomarcunha]

Hi The Old Sarge,
No offense taken at all. As a matter of facts, I'd like to thank you for first reading the post and second bothering to write a sincere but fair comment. That's a very good way to help me to get better.
I know BI has a lot to contribute to Small Business Companies and it can be done using the tools already available without any extra cost.
What I don't know yet is how to talk about it in a way that Small Business owners can not only understand but also apply the concepts and profit for it.
I think communication is the key here and that's why I wrote (and I agree with you) such a basic post to start the discussion; but I have to say, it was only the beginning.
I took the discussion a little bit deeper in another post. This one is a small piece more practical and It is about "how to use BI to do menu optimization considering the pizzeria profitability". I hope you find any value in it.
I also would like to invite you (and everybody else) to ask questions (or give ideas) about how to use BI in Small Business. I think it would really help us all to use more BI in our companies.

[claudiomarcunha]

Boosting Pizzeria profit using Business Intelligence in menu optimization

Is your pizzeria profitable in its full potential? If you sell the best food in town, you are head and shoulder ahead of competition but the question remains. Are you making the best use of the restaurant equipment you have?

As a business man, you already know that if you are not making the best use of your kitchen equipment, you may be leaving money on the table.

Here are two questions that can help your profit to grow a few points:

* How to influence customer's pizza choice?
* If you had such a power, which product would you recommend?

How to help a customer to choose pizza using BI?

There is a lot of different ways to influence a customer’s choice in a pizzeria:
* waiter recommendations,
* showing beautiful pictures on the walls,
* emphasizing the pizza's name or,
* showing the pizza's picture on menu.

If all products look the same on menu, each pizza may have the same chance to be chosen.

However, if one product outstands, it becomes a recommendation raising the chances to be the next order.

Which pizza would you recommend if you knew how to use BI?

Considering only pizzeria profitability, you should recommend the most profitable type of pizza.
To know which one it is, follow these steps:
* Estimate the pizzeria’s cost for each type of pizza
* Calculate the profit by type of pizza
* Sort the list of pizzas from the most to the least profitable

Conclusion
I hope you don’t go changing all your menus right now just because of this article. Product profitability is not the only point to consider in menu or restaurant design. However, I am quite sure you have some customers that just don’t know what to order, right?

When that is the case, why not taking the pizzeria profitability into consideration while you help the customer with his decision making process?

As a conclusion, you don't have to expend a lot of money to have BI solutions in your pizzeria; you can use it right now; so, why wait?

If you don't know how yet, just raise your hand and let me know!

See more in Small Business IT.

[Robert_us]

Hi,

Contrary to assumptions of many small and medium sized business owners, business intelligence is not a fancy word meant for boardrooms of large corporates - it is as important for smaller businesses as it is for larger. In fact, considering that smaller businesses have exposure in just one or two areas and much lesser financial resources at their disposal, optimizing performance based on business intelligence becomes all the more critical.

It is also a myth that business intelligence can only be accomplished by allocating huge budgets. Thanks to the efforts of professional business intelligence solutions, even small business owners can now have economical access to financial benchmarking and other business intelligence tools.