Business Intelligence Assignment: Digital Business Management Of Primark
Question
Task:
Business Intelligence Assignment Task
You are required to write an individual report critically evaluating the importance Business Intelligence and the role it plays in the strategic management.
First, select a company of your choice to work on. And using the example of the selected company
1. Discuss the role Business Intelligence play in the selected organization to help in the decision-making process. Provide specific examples of decisions.
2. Discuss how the selected organisation can achieve competitive advantage using business intelligence. Provide relevant examples of scenarios and frameworks to critically analyze the competitive advantage.
Answer
Background OfBusiness Intelligence Assignment
Business Intelligence is an important concept that helps in guiding companies to make decisions based on strategy-based elements by gathering quality knowledge about the global market trends, present performance of the business by the companies and by researching the customer behavioural pattern. The efficiency in operations and productivity in business can be achieved by incorporating business intelligence methods and practices.
The study will cover the basic role played by business intelligence and its features in Primark for making effective decisions that will help them to acquire a competitive advantage in the world market. The overview of the Primark company covering its different range of functions and services will be considered by tackling the challenges that are faced to incorporate business intelligence with clarity and accuracy.
Company Overview
Primark is a multinational company that deals in providing e-commerce services to numerous customers who avail their products regularly. Primark develops strategies that act as a guide for them to gather, store and analyse the personal information of their customers. Primark is based in the UK and sells fast fashion products like clothing, shoes, accessories and others (Primark.com, 2021). It makes use of business intelligence in a planned way so that it can manage the big data that is adopted and applied within the execution of the business and management operations taking place in the world market. Big data can be considered as a specific form of technology that adopts steps to manage a large data set. According to Gupta et al. (2021), Primark makes use of predictive analytics to develop targeted marketing activities that help them to enhance satisfaction among the consumers. Customer loyalty is established in return.
Role of Business Intelligence in Decision Making
Business Intelligence is an important concept that makes use of unstructured data and transforms it into actionable information. This helps the Primark company to make informed decisions about their customers. The customer preferences and the global customer behavioural pattern of the customers could be specified systematically (Eisenberg, 2019). The contact centres that operate under Primark can smoothly manage the customer interactions and enhance the value proposition of the customer services that are delivered by the company. According to Torres et al. (2018), the application of the business intelligence concept and its integral practices helps to develop a return on investment for companies by the reduction in expenses, enhancing the revenue in the market and helping to improve the profit margins.
According to Gioti et al. (2018), Strategic management theory and its relevant features are applied in combination with business intelligence in the Primark company so that the data related to making use of business techniques can be deciphered. Reporting has to be done punctually within the organisations and that is ensured by the use of quality business intelligence frameworks that prove to be suitable for the company. The informed decisions can be taken by the Primark company based on the reporting data that is provided to them. Primark can handle a large amount of data set by optimizing the data sources with the help of applying a proper business intelligence framework within its organizational setup.
The inclusion of a competent business intelligence team helps in saving the expenses of the Primark company while handling the wide range of business operations that are specified in the world market (Agnihotri and Bhattacharya, 2020). Sharing of information by the use of advanced technological forms such as Artificial Intelligence also helps the business intelligence to operate successfully. Business Intelligence also could aid the social media marketing strategy to flourish in Primark as quality communication and connection could be set up with the customers who were present in large numbers in the social media.
Competitive Advantages through Business Intelligence
The enterprise and business analytics strategy were designed and adopted by Primark to ensure that they can acquire the desired competitive advantage in the global market.
Figure 1: Data management structure in Primark
(Source: AI, Data & Analytics Network.2021)
According to Munawar et al. (2020), the personalisation engine used by Primark helps in handling the data by adhering to the practices included within business intelligence. The other technological forms such as the use of AI, machine learning and collaborative filtering that can be associated with different items were adapted and incorporated with success and efficiency so that the goals of achieving productivity and competitive advantage in the global market (Eisenberg, 2019). Auxiliary data is also assessed by Primark by making use of predictive analytics that helps them to gain insights into the customer age and level of income. This helps the company to guess about the next buying option of the customers who are present in the world market. The data of the customers is used by Primark for developing the dynamic pricing strategy within the global world so that efficient goals could be achieved.
The supply chain system that is operated by the relevant data helps to specify the warehouse that is very much close to the vendor or the customers. This strategy helps the Primark company to manage their stocks with success and share the message with the customers that their stock is empty and the customers are not allowed to buy until the stocks are filled.
Potential Business Intelligence Challenges
The internal IT management teams of Primark holds the responsibility for the development of the “core” components which drive customer experience at the company and its website (Fabri and Márquez, 2020). As a subdivision within the IT teams, the “BDT” or the “Business Data Technologies” group is integral to this process. The division is tasked with the collection of petabytes of valuable data from innumerable sources outside and inside of the company, like the catalogue system of Primark, inventory management systems, customer order and service systems and others (Hewageet al., 2018). The data collected from such sources form the basis of the Business Intelligence strategy of the company. However, due to integration, quality and other similar issues, the website of the company and the overall BI strategy can face some issues. Some of the main challenges regarding the Business Intelligence and Information Systems of Primark are:
Disconnected Applications and Data
The company can face issues in integrating the "data" between "end-user" tools such as Access, Excel and others. Data can exist in one specific platform but it needs to be used on various platforms. Therefore, most of the data is transferred or uploaded manually. Performing such manual tasks regarding data continuously can become unproductive, tedious and demoralising for the employees. The employees performing such tasks are skilled personnel who could be used in other production systems (Eisenberg, 2019). This tediousness of the manual work can lead to frustration in the higher management and cause issues regarding disconnected applications and data since it can take a lot of time for the employees in answering the questions of the management due to the lack of flexibility and responsiveness of the data, hindering the ability of the management to make quick and productive decisions.
Data Quality Issues
Business Intelligence applications are only as reliable as the "data" they are built on. Users should be provided with access to relevant and "high-quality" data before the initiations of any Business Intelligence project. In the rush for aggregating data for thorough analysis, the company can tend to neglect the quality of the data, or on fixing errors after the collection of data (Tarabasz, 2022). This can cause issues regarding the quality of the data collected. The main reason behind this can be an acute shortage of understanding regarding the relevance of the appropriate management of data among the main users.
Data Silos
The data silos or the “siloed” systems of the company can face issues regarding inconsistencies in the information gathered. Business Intelligence tools can have limited access to “siloed” data due to differing permission “levels” and “security” settings. Inconsistency in the data can cause multiple outcomes and compel the company to witness varying results for the “Key Performance Indicators” and other relevant metrics.
Recommendations
Some of the recommendations which can be made based upon on the evaluation of the website of the company and in regards to the issues faced by the BI strategy of the company are:
Connectivity and Collaboration
To address any potential issues regarding disconnected applications and data, the company can focus on improving the connectivity between “relational” sources of data like “IT”, Excel for end-users and others by using a powerful and integrative “mathematical calculations’” engine, which can make the process of modelling of the business data smarter and faster (Smith and Linden, 2017). This means that the end-users can have value-added and aggregated data while preparing documents and reports. This can provide additional time for analysing the data and addressing any potential errors. Moreover, since "end-user" tools are usually connected, with the data sets being shared, productivity and collaboration get increased. Users like analysts can focus on reporting findings in a productive and faster manner.
Integrative Business Intelligence Tools
To address the problems regarding the quality of data, Primark must focus on creating a process of data collection while deploying Business Intelligence tools, which involve the analysts as well as the end-users in collaborating for ensuring the accuracy of the data (West, 2019). Moreover, the company also needs to develop a strategy for its data management needs for providing a consolidated foundation for tracking the whole lifecycle of the data. This will help in bringing more accuracy in the data and help in the elimination of bad or noisy data.
Breaking Down Silos
To address the challenges regarding the inconsistency challenges in the data silos, the management and Business Intelligence teams of the company must focus on breaking down the silos, for harmonising the data in the silos, for having the desired outcome and impact on the decision-making in the business (Tarabasz, 2022). For example, the Business Intelligence teams need to be provided uninterrupted access to the Customer Feedback systems for collecting intelligence and allowing the business to make smart and better decisions regarding customer services.
Conclusion
The report was aimed at discussing the Business Intelligence and data management of Primark, the largest e-commerce platform in the world. The report tries to discuss the role and importance of Business Intelligence in the current data-driven world. Primark, being the largest e-commerce platform in the world has been increasing its focus on collecting Business Intelligence for its e-commerce platforms. This has improved the decision-making process of the company and provided the company various competitive advantages like getting the first mover's advantage by creating new products or entering new segments. The potential Business Intelligence challenges which the company can face have been discussed in the report. Various recommendations have also been made for addressing the challenges.
References
Agnihotri, A. and Bhattacharya, S., 2020. Primark Stores Limited: Low-cost Strategy and Sustainability Initiatives. Ivey Publishing.
AI, Data & Analytics Network. 2021. Amazon: Business Analytics Mastermind or Anti-Trust Infringer. [online] Available at:
Eisenberg, P., 2019. Financial Analysis of Primark Stores Ltd. with regard to a Stock Exchange Floatation (IPO). International Journal of Management, 7(1), pp.91-112.
Fabri, L. and Márquez, I., 2020. Will E-Commerce Dominate Physical Store. International Journal of Technology for Business, 2(1), pp.23-29.
Gioti, H., Ponis, S.T. and Panayiotou, N., 2018. Social business intelligence: Review and research directions. Journal of Intelligence Studies in Business, 8(2).
Gupta, S., Justy, T., Kamboj, S., Kumar, A. and Kristoffersen, E., 2021. Big data and firm marketing performance: Findings from knowledge-based view. Business intelligence assignmentTechnological Forecasting and Social Change, 171, p.120986.
Hewage, T.N., Halgamuge, M.N., Syed, A. and Ekici, G., 2018. Big Data Techniques of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter. J. Commun., 13(2), pp.94-100.
Munawar, H.S., Qayyum, S., Ullah, F. and Sepasgozar, S., 2020. Big data and its applications in smart real estate and the disaster management life cycle: A systematic analysis. Big Data and Cognitive Computing, 4(2), p.4.
Primark.com, 2021. Primark UK | Fashion, Home & Beauty | Take Care, Stay Safe. [online] Primark.com. Available at:
Smith, B. and Linden, G., 2017. Two decades of recommender systems at Amazon. com. Ieee internet computing, 21(3), pp.12-18.
Tarabasz, A., 2022. Be Like Amazon: Achieving a Competitive Advantage Based on Digital Footprint Analysis. In Cases on Digital Strategies and Management Issues in Modern Organizations (pp. 23-50). IGI Global.
Torres, R., Sidorova, A. and Jones, M.C., 2018. Enabling firm performance through business intelligence and analytics: A dynamic capabilities perspective. Information & Management, 55(7), pp.822-839.
