Business intelligence (BI) seems to be the hottest new buzzword in town and can be found across a multitude of industries and platforms. For those who don’t understand it, or perhaps for those who haven’t had the chance to fully realize its purpose and impacts, it can be vague and often intimidating. Upon hearing the term, you may imagine a robot spitting out data or an unending sequence of unreadable formula tables and statistical jargon. These preconceived notions may not be entirely misplaced, but the true beauty of BI lies in the analytical simplicity of its end results.
BI refers to the technologies, tools, infrastructures, and applications that are used to collect, store and analyze complex data sets to support better, more informed decision making. The ultimate outcome of BI is to package the data into easily understandable results to provide insight into business best practices and trends.
But how does one start using BI to take advantage of all it can offer? The capabilities of BI are endless and can often be overwhelming with no clear start or finish line; in fact, the entire course can seem hazy and insurmountable at times. That’s why Susan Perlmutter, Chief Revenue Officer of REPAY, recommends business leaders partner with a trusted vendor who is already collecting important data points about their businesses and customers during normal, day-to-day operations.
“It’s best to find a partner who can not only collect the data on your behalf, but who can also analyze and package that data into digestible, easy to understand pieces of information that can translate into best practices, trends, and action items for your business,” says Perlmutter. She is surely no stranger to the advantages of BI as REPAY continues to build robust business intelligence services for its clients.
REPAY, an Atlanta-based payment technology company that offers omnichannel payment services wrapped up in the most secure and advanced technology on the market, is already using BI to identify both micro- and macro-level trends. The company primarily serves clients in the consumer finance, auto finance, and collections industries where most payments are made on a recurring basis to repay some form of debt. “By using BI in conjunction with payment data, we can tell you an awful lot about your business and your customers that you probably don’t know,” explains Perlmutter. “Payment data can provide insight into consumer preferences and behaviors and can measure ROI on technology and personnel resources, which in turn can help businesses make more sound decisions regarding marketing efforts, staffing levels, and future investments.”
By analyzing a merchant’s payments, REPAY can identify consumer payment preferences, including how, when and through which channel a specific type of consumer prefers to pay. REPAY can also detect potential usability issues within payment channels. For example, if consumers initiate payments on one channel, but complete those payments on another, it may suggest that there is an obstacle impeding the payment process.
BI can provide cost analysis, another important aspect for merchants who accept electronic payments. REPAY’s BI platform can analyze the cost of payments through each channel, comparing the cost of agent-assisted payments to the cost of fully automated, unassisted payments. This valuable insight can measure ROI and suggest where additional investments should be made.
According to Perlmutter, “The opportunities of business intelligence as it relates to payments are infinite. We can successfully predict when businesses will receive the most payments and when payments will most likely be approved, and based on that data, we can offer action plans for effective account management, communication strategies and marketing tactics.” She’s most excited about turning that data around to reward consumers. REPAY can evaluate payment data to build a reward-based system unique to each merchant to reward consumers who practice ideal payment behaviors, such as paying on time for six consecutive months.
The future of BI is promising and powerful, and it is thriving in our own backyard. Just as Atlanta has become the hub for payments, it soon will be known as the epicenter for business intelligence. Millions of transactions run through Atlanta every day and the number of data points associated with those transactions are astonishing. As a society, we are on the verge of unlocking invaluable information that can not only predict individual business operations but could potentially predict much larger shifts in the economy, such as periods of GDP growth or recession. It is not too premature to think that Atlanta could be the leader in those national and global conversations.
REPAY aims to harness the power of business intelligence to help its merchants grow and prosper. REPAY’s BI platform provides its merchants with both an overarching 30,000-foot view of economic and market trends and a granular analysis of their immediate ecosystems comprised of individual consumers and payments.