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In the fight to remain competitive, Business Intelligence (BI) is crucial for fintechs.
Why? To name just a handful of examples; the actionable insight derived from BI analysis enables fintechs to better understand customers’ needs, detect suspicious activity (including cybersecurity issues), identify ways to increase margins, and supports more personalised customer experiences.
Ultimately, the right business intelligence supports growth while managing risk.
Without accurate BI, fintechs risk making the wrong strategic decisions or being too slow to react to insight. The overall result means the opposite of the benefits above: security risks, loss of customers, and other fintechs advancing ahead.
So to maximise the insight gained from Business Intelligence, there are several best practice steps you can follow to get better data reports.
Let’s jump in…
1. Get to grips with your report parameters
The first step is to think about your end users. Who will be using the reports and what decision-making will be done throughout the process? This helps to better understand your target audience and the deliverables they need.
To identify your target audience, we recommend starting with a list of all the key stakeholders involved. And then arranging a time to interview each individual to capture their needs. You can do the interviews over the phone or via a video call, or you may prefer face-to-face.
Here’s a few key questions you can ask to get the answers you need:
What kind of reports do you currently use?
Why do you need a specific report?
Who will use a report?
What type of device will be needed to access reports?
2. Identify your report KPIs
Measurement is crucial for your data reports. So the next step is to decide on the KPIs you’ll be measuring across all reports.
Top tip: When running your stakeholder interviews (step 1), you can ask questions to get an idea of the metrics they are interested in seeing.
There’s likely to be a range of KPIs you want to measure and they’ll most likely be quantitative, such as percentages and numbers. For example, you may want to track the number of inbound new business enquiries.
3. Think visual
When it comes to presenting the KPIs in a report, visualisation is key. Through the use of flow charts, pie charts and graphs, you can easily articulate data insights and track how the business is performing against KPIs. The wrong visuals could mean misinterpretations or a lack of understanding.
Let’s say you wanted to share multiple KPIs at once. A good option here may be to use a single column KPI. With this chart, you can show data and metrics in individual bar columns or lines. You can also break this down by groups or users - for example, you may want to visualise sales revenue by region and per month.
Likewise, if it's a specific trend, you’ll want to opt for a trend chart. These graphs allow you to see when a value (or KPI) is above or below a specific target. Contrasting data can be highlighted in different colours to help users easily identify underperformance.
4. Select the best reporting technology
So now you know who you are reporting for, the KPIs you are measuring and the visualisations you need to easily share performance tracking. Great!
The next step is to focus on technology. The type of BI reporting tech enables everyone to view data reports in one place.
This is where embedded analytics comes in. A lot of fintechs turn to embedded analytics because of several key features, including:
automatic scheduling and alerts - allowing you to create highly detailed reports in just seconds.
all data in reports is monitored - with any changes delivered directly to the appropriate users.
self-service dashboards - housing all reporting data in a central location. Plus, each report is fully customisable.
5. Review and refine
Data reporting should continue to evolve as stakeholders change their mind on KPIs that need tracking, new reporting features may be developed and let’s face it, customer behaviour ever changes.
Top tip: Continuing to work closely with end users is crucial to ensure BI reports remain valuable in supporting the growth of your fintech business.
Levelling up your Business Intelligence with embedded analytics
Whereas traditional BI systems rely on data stored in internal databases, embedded analytics takes your company’s insights and put them right where they matter: inside your applications.
How? Embedded analytics integrated within your existing data stack ensures data stays where it is and never moves, ensuring full data integrity and governance. Running predictive models over the whole data set provides more accurate predictive insights, which previously would have been unattainable.
This level of insight is incredibly valuable for growth.
Essentially, it provides a bigger picture and allows fintechs and customers to pivot strategies to overcome market changes and best present themselves to investors.
The key reason fintechs use embedded analytics? It provides fintechs with access to the right analytics in real-time, which empowers strategic initiatives like customer loyalty and acquisition and investment - right when your fintech needs the insight.
Make real-time decisions and stay ahead of fintech competition
Maintaining a competitive edge is fundamental for customer acquisition, retention, investment and overall revenue performance. And this is why the right BI is so important. What’s more, accurate data insight helps maintain regulatory compliance and mitigate risks.
Key takeaway: With advances in tech and data analytics, it’s essential that you keep in touch with the latest industry best practices and review your KPIs and reporting tech to improve business information and stay ahead of the competition.
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
Nkiru Uwaje Chief Operating Officer at MANSA
03 October
Sireesh Patnaik Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) at Pennant Technologies
02 October
Jelle Van Schaick Head of Marketing at Intergiro
01 October
Ruchi Rathor Founder at Payomatix Technologies
30 September
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