Sunday, 21 August 2011

The Value of Business Intelligence


Business intelligence is, in essence, information that helps a business make commercial decisions. Business intelligence is simple to understand, but the process can be highly complex to get right. The process of gathering information relevant to a company and its business is vital in order for the company to make important and commercially crucial decisions.

What are these decisions that business intelligence helps make? Usually, the business decisions relate to mergers and acquisitions — in particular, the targets of potential mergers and acquisitions. The decisions can also relate to investigations, matters concerning employment and employee selection, supplier selection, and general background checks. Business intelligence can be gathered from the public domain, or information can be derived from discreet and tactful investigations of the reputation of companies or individuals.

What is the value of business intelligence, and why does a company need it in order to make good decisions? If a company doesn’t conduct good quality research — or due diligence — before entering into a commercial deal or a contract, it leaves itself open to scrutiny by regulators, shareholders, and the public. Without adequate intelligence concerning the financial deal, the company is at risk of damaging its own reputation if issues arise that negatively impact the company or the business community as a whole.

Companies that are operating or seeking to operate in jurisdictions with which they are not familiar are in particular need of comprehensive business intelligence. Certain countries have a lack of corporate governance and inaccuracies in record filing and register upkeep. Many countries have standard business practices that are not acceptable to investors or regulators in developed countries. And the issue is not only pertinent to less developed countries; it is essential to find out proper intelligence about companies in developed nations that may be offshore registered, or whose leadership is obscured by front directors.

Business intelligence gathering is carried out through a number of in-depth and complex processes. The company or individual carrying out the intelligence-gathering activities must make extensive enquiries, carry out research, and use intelligence-gathering methodologies in order to establish the accurate facts of the case. In this way, the company can complete a deal in greater confidence, knowing that they are not being exposed to any obscured liabilities that could affect them in the future. One key part of successful intelligence gathering is an open communication between the company and the intelligence gatherers, in order to understand the objectives of the company and the areas of focus.

RISQ is a global firm specialising in business intelligence, crisis and security management, fraud investigations and forensics, and risk consulting and training. The team of experienced professionals works for clients all over the world from a head office in Australia. Visit http://risqgroup.com/sites/risq/index.php?page=Services&index.php&subpage
=Business_Intelligence to find out how RISQ can help your business.

No comments:

Post a Comment