Understanding Business Intelligence
In a rapidly changing business environment, managing a business requires three things. The three essentials are increased awareness, capacity-building and proactive action. The positioning and ability of an entrepreneur to effectively utilise these three aspects of business management practice to create greater capital value and sustainable profits is referred to as “Business Intelligence”. And, it is the application of business intelligence that compels comparative advantage in the marketplace, as your business is positioned for sustainable success.
An increased awareness of how business intelligence produces extraordinary results and how its intentional application enhances business performance remain 
issues of critical importance for the Christian entrepreneur and business owner. This is because the Christian entrepreneur, who already has the benefit of spiritual resourcefulness, has the great potential to effect greater productivity and all-round fruitfulness. This is the desire of God who has made several promises to prosper the endeavours of the hard-working, honest and God-fearing believer in business.
The starting point is for Christian entrepreneurs, business managers and organisational leaders to commit to making sustainable impact in their sphere of influence through their business intelligence.Business intelligence in this regard is developed by continuously increasing your unique knowledge, committing to building capacity, and ensuring that you skillfully adapt practical business building tools and techniques. That is the foundation for wealth creation, and it starts with the application of your unique knowledge to create sustainable wealth.
The Strategic Christian Entrepreneur
For Christian entrepreneurs, business owners and managers to utilise their business intelligence potentials to create value and consequently wealth, there must be the active interplay of the 3H’s (Head; Heart; and Hands). These correspond to three major ingredients of entrepreneurship, which are ideas, passion and hard work. It is these three values plus the grace and favour (blessings) of God that bring about compelling wealth (Deuteronomy 28:11-12). This means that you must be a strategic business developer; a strategic business marketer; and a strategic business manager.
Being aware of yourself in terms of your abilities, knowledge, skills, visions and motivations, as well as being aware of your environment in terms of opportunities and threats provide a great advantage in business. These are what would enable you to build the appropriate capacity and be proactive in business.
This means that you must continually invest in your personal development and business differentiation through increased personal and business knowledge. This is because it is what you know that gives you an advantage over someone that does not know. That is the very essence of intelligence. It is to have the knowledge that can be adapted and applied sustainably to compel comparative advantage in the marketplace.
That is why it is no longer feasible to be reactive in business and attempt to get along by your feelings. You need intelligent gathering of relevant information and an equally intelligent use of the information to give your business a competitive edge in the marketplace. Below are some tips, ideas and thoughts that can make your business pay you better dividends.
- Focus on Value-Creation
Never go into business for any reason other than creation of value and offering of great service as your primary motivation. While making money is of great important in establishing and operating your business, money-making should never be the primary reason for your being in business. Focus on creating value and offering great service, the money will come almost naturally, because money always tracks value.
- Invest in Comprehensive Research
Never venture out without first of all carrying out a realistic product, service, and market research. It is in this regard wise to firstly investigate and shop for products or services, which are similar to yours, as you make effort to establish their popularity and price. So, be open to asking people to be objective critics of your ideas and services, and encourage them to suggest improvement of the idea(s).
- Seek to be Unique
Be unique in business or be nothing at all. Make sure that you always emphasise and direct attention to the uniqueness or difference of your products/services. Products that cannot be well differentiated in the marketplace end up being treated as commodities, leading to the struggle to be price competitive. That would only squeeze profits and impact on business cash flow.
- Develop Marketing Intelligence
Marketing is the engine of the business. And in marketing, there are rules. The rules are coded in: “AIDA”, which stands for Attention; Interest; Desire; and Action. Getting the attention and arousing the interest of the would-be customer are the most critical steps in marketing. The steps the customer takes are dependent on your knowledge, skills, presentation and confidence. That is why marketing intelligence is critical.
A good understanding of marketing is manifested when a business continuously focuses its attention on satisfying the customers’ needs rather than on the money that can be made from the customers. As a result, strategic marketing is the main key that builds a business into the success that the owner or manager wants. When you have mastered the art of marketing, you cross over from the group of businesses that struggle to make ends meet because of low sales.
- Be a Niche Player
Niche marketing (or spot marketing) is one of the most effective ways to establish your business and/or your product as a brand in the market. It is being a little more ‘discriminate’ in marketing by benchmarking yourself as an expert in a specific area or supplying a product that appeals to a smaller group within the market. The principle behind niche marketing in this regard is that you are able to connect with specific customers at a much higher level, thereby making your business to focus on meeting a need that is specific to the group. As a result, you may not have so many customers, but you gain more business and maximise your resources.
What this means is that you should not be a Jack of all trade in business. Be focused on specifics in terms of your deliverable and the target market. At the start you may not have a large customer base, but with time, you build enough reputation and trust among key customers. It is those key customers that soon become your loyal marketing partners through their referrals and testimonials. That is the fastest, cheapest and most sustainable way to establish a business niche and build a strong customer base.
- Understand the Need and Use of Money
Understand money for what it is. It is mainly a servant and tool to get things done and achieve specific goals in your business. An analogy is like your business being a car that needs fuel (money) to run. Yes, your need to use money in, and for business, but your business is more than the money, just as the car is more than the fuel. Money must therefore be seen as a means to an end, and should never be the end. The end for you in your business is to make it a blessing, using money as one of the tools to achieve that end.
What this means is that you must create a mindset of giving more in terms of value than you seek to receive in terms of money. That would urge you to think less about your wants, and more about being a blessing through you entrepreneurship activities and business operation. What is exciting and also true about that approach and mindset is that you will in fact get more money along the way because money shows up wherever real value is created.
- Set Financial Goals and Stick to Your Budget
People that set realistic financial goals for their business are more likely to achieve greater success than those who do not. It is important in this regard to break the entire financial goal for the year into phases like monthly, weekly and daily goals. The plan would of course indicate actions that must focus on improving income from assets, business activities, capital injection, rental incomes, passive incomes, leveraged incomes, etc. The long-term financial goals can then be used to develop an income statement and balance sheet on a yearly basis, once it is broken down into yearly goals.
Budget wisely by not spending on what you do not have to spend on. Rather look for ways to multiply the resources that you have first before thinking of spending on treats. And, that is why you must stick to your budget. When there is no commitment to using a budget, the temptation to spend impulsively and intuitively is extremely high, leading not only to avoidable wastage, but also to financial failures and risks. The greatest value of using a budget therefore is in helping to forecast profit and also to ensure that financial leakages are eliminated.
- Associate with Successful Businesspersons
Always associate with entrepreneurial and financially successful people, who can become mentors and coaches. You learn more by seeing and doing. Remember that entrepreneurship is not just about having and implementing business ideas. It is more about acquiring essential business knowledge, which is further developed with continuous capacity-building strategies into great business building and management skills. One way of developing, enhancing and optimising your skills is by learning through your business association and networking.
By associating and networking with businesspersons who have succeeded, and are succeeding where you wish to succeed, especially if they are also Christians, you can improve certain entrepreneurial characteristics. These include tenacity, adaptability, agility, flexibility, responsiveness, innovativeness, independence and good judgement among others. Moreover, the possibilities and opportunities for partnerships and collaboration can also be worthy benefits.
==============================================================
Dr Emmanuel Imevbore is an executive coach, management consultant and business strategist. He is the CEO of International Coaching and Mentoring Institute, a specialist coaching and coach-training organisation. He can be reached by email:
emmanuel@ic-mi.com; and WhatsApp: +27 79 259 1768.
==============================================================
