No Thanks, I Don’t Want to Grow My Business…

“Excuse me sir, you’ve just dropped this $100 bill”. Imagine my surprise when the guy said “naahhh, I don’t want it”. Ummm what? That’s crazy – it’s $100 dollars!

I have a similar feeling of WTH (that’s “What The Heck” for all you non-texting lingo people) when I speak to someone about business intelligence.

I’ve met with numerous people who say “Business Intelligence??? Naaaahh, I don’t need it”. Well, but how do you know what your customers are buying from you? Or what they’re NOT buying from you? How do you know what customers are cherry picking business from you, buying only part of your offering instead of everything that you sell? How do you know what products sitting on your shelf have been there too long and need to be returned? How do you manage inventory turns?

Often I get answers along the lines of “My ERP does that, I think”. “Awww I don’t have time to look at that crap”. I even will on occasion get this response: “I don’t need to grow my business”. Ummmm WTH?! I certainly understand the business owner who doesn’t want to get exponentially larger but who honestly feels like they wouldn’t like to put more money into their pocket? Seriously?!

When I get the opportunity, which I do from time to time, to have a better chat with these prospective customers, I often find the root of the problem is not apathy but fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the visibility a tool like this gives to their bosses, fear that a business intelligence tool will render their job obsolete, fear that they won’t use it and fear that it will be too hard.

The list goes on and on and while there are plenty of things to be fearful of in your business, a business intelligence tool shouldn’t be one of them. The right BI tool should be easy to implement, easy to use but most importantly, should give you almost immediate visibility into ways to putting more money into your pocket. But, if you’re still afraid, I’d be happy to keep that $100 bill.