Over the years, Green Enterprise Solutions has been at the forefront of the business intelligence and data analytics revolution in Namibia. In the Namibian context, the demand for business intelligence solutions has grown in recent years. Influential companies, such as financial institutions, banks, energy companies, mines, and clothing retailers, just to name a few, are analysing their customers’ data to understand customer behaviour, improve their bottom line, and, most importantly, better serve them. In light of this, Business Express Namibia (BE) engaged Green Enterprise’s Head of Project Management Office Bro-Mathew Niikondo (BMN), who provided key insights on Business Intelligence and Data Analytics in Namibia.
BE: What is business intelligence and data analytics?
BMN: Companies, governments, and institutions constantly collect data. Through their websites, systems, and apps, when you scan a barcode or a QR code or process any sort of transaction, more data and information are collected, and of course, when filling in forms. Everything is measured and stored, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Organisations harvest this data, so much of it these days that it’s become known as Big Data. This information is collated, cleaned, and analysed to make business decisions.
BE: Is business intelligence and data analytics used in Namibia?
BMN: In the Namibian context, the demand for business intelligence solutions has grown in recent years. Influential companies, such as financial institutions, banks, energy companies, mines, and clothing retailers, just to name a few, are analysing their customers’ data to understand customer behaviour, improve their bottom line, and, most importantly, better serve them. It can make organisations more streamlined and efficient. A good example is if a postal services company doesn’t correctly record its customers’ data. If customer addresses are not correctly updated or inactive customers continue receiving services, deliveries may be sent to the wrong addresses. Or duplicate letters could be sent. This could cost the organisation millions. Leading to customer dissatisfaction, reputational damage, and wasted resources. This also skews operational and sales reports, making it difficult to assess customer activity and profitability accurately. When inactive or outdated accounts are included in reporting, the data becomes unreliable, affecting decision-making and long-term business strategy.
BE: How do you distil the information from all the raw data so that the organisation can use and leverage it?
BMN: The Business Intelligence Solution, used to build KPI reports and dashboards for businesses, is developed based on existing data sources. However, an organisation must have cleansed and reliable data sources that input reports to generate accurate reports and dashboards. Transforming data requires extensive groundwork; it requires thorough data cleansing and a robust foundation from which an organisation can build reliable reports and generate trends and insights, of course, with the aid of artificial intelligence. Crunching data has become easy with all the tools we have at our disposal. If you know what you are doing, the data is an absolute goldmine for Namibian companies.
BE: How does an enterprise go about embracing and harnessing business intelligence and data analytics in Namibia?
BMN: Often organisations think that BI and DA are only accessible by large international corporations in other countries, but SMEs produce data and information, too. It may be even more applicable to smaller companies, as the smaller set of data is easier to manage. Making it easier to leverage the data to enhance customer experience, service, and product improvements. So, Namibian companies can and should be using these tools. Having data is one thing. However, organisations need to understand how to leverage their raw data and transform it into valuable information; knowledge management can feed, leverage, and maximise information with the click of a few buttons when informed and prompt decision-making is needed. It is how modern C-level suite management distils vast amounts of data into manageable bite-sized chunks to base their decisions for the organisation.
BE: Do Namibian companies have the expertise to offer BI and DA services to Namibian organisations?
BE: Green Enterprise Solutions has been at the forefront of the business intelligence and data analytics revolution. As mentioned in the previous answers, there is so much valuable data floating out there, and Namibian companies can gain a competitive edge if they leverage this information correctly. By building reliable KPI reports/dashboards but also establishing solid foundations that input the KPI reports and dashboards. Nowadays, managers and decision-makers do not have time to dig through data to make decisions; this is where business intelligence and data intelligence shine, as they eliminate inefficiencies while solidifying prompt execution and decision-making.
BE: Can you input any data and information to get the desired results?
BMN: While numerous positive attributes of business intelligence have been mentioned, it is essential to reiterate the significance of having clean and accurate data. The last thing you want as an organisation is to generate reports from incorrect raw data. If the data upon which the reports are based are incorrect, decisions undertaken could potentially be wrong. This can negatively impact business and your service offering and delivery. It is important to have all the data and facts when making any decision, even in your personal life. Namibian companies must have the same attitude; they can enhance their decision-making process just by leveraging the data they already have swirling around their company. The tools have become so user-friendly that anyone can use them to their benefit.