The New Wave in Business Intelligence

By: Vanitha Nair, Cloud Solutions Manager 

Meet Wave Analytics, the new feature under Salesforce that brings the best of Customer Relationship Management and business intelligence together.

Over the last few years if there was one problem I faced repeatedly, it was the challenge of explaining to both existing and potential customers that Salesforce.com’s (SFDC) Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is NOT a business intelligence (BI) tool.

This assumption is mainly because customers understand the platform that SFDC is built on. And from their point of view, having a BI tool on such a secure cloud-based platform would be akin to having a genie that grants more wishes than they can imagine. There’s also the fact that business professionals have always had to depend on a team of analysts to get access to data from on-premise legacy BI softwares because of their complexity.

But it looks like there is after all a genie that grants endless wish for business professionals everywhere. Built on a secure, powerful, fast and optimized platform, the new Wave Analytics lets businesses get real time business insights from anywhere, anytime, on any device.

What makes the Wave Analytics better than other BI softwares available in the market is the fact that it is built on the SFDC platform which is native to all other SFDC core products. This gives existing SFDC users a seamless native integration. They are also able to view all Sales, Service, Marketing and other related data in a single searchable interface. If you’re wondering what exactly can Wave Analytics do for you, here’s a breakdown.

Data is of essence
Just like every other SFDC product, businesses don’t have to depend on IT personnels for installations, upgrades, etc and can have Wave Analytics up and running in no time. There’s also no need to rely on business analysts to help create workflow actions as this can be done with just a point and click. Because data can be integrated easily from various sources, they’re readily available to you at all times which allows you to make faster decisions.

It’s a Carry on Tool
Wave Analytics is designed not just for the standard smart mobile devices you’re familiar with but is optimized for every device – including smart-watches! This allows collaborating and sharing of new findings with your team possible using absolutely any smart device.

Consolidation is KEY
Unlike your standard BI tool, Wave Analytics only takes a few hours to set up with the Sales and Service cloud native connection as opposed to weeks! You can also gain real-time insight to your team’s performance from anywhere. Safety is also one feature you will not have to worry about because SFDC provides the same level of high protection and control for Wave Analytics as it does with its other products.

So how can Wave Analytics compliment Sales Cloud and Service Cloud? Well, let’s take a look.

Holistic insights to boost your Sales
With seamless integration to Sales Cloud, Wave Analytics is able to capture all sales related data (i.e: total sales closure,  pipeline,  sales team performance etc.) and provide a holistic view of the company’s performance year on year to the management. Using this data, the management would be able to make the necessary decisions for a more successful year ahead. Wave Analytics also enables users to get access to various out-of-the-box dashboards based on best practices for KPIs pre-populated to capture the Sales Team’s performance.

Ensure Customer Service Agents are giving the best service to your clients
Native integration with Service Cloud provides real-time consolidated information on the performance of Customer Service Team and with all these information captured, Wave Analytics is able to provide real time analytics on factors such as Average Handling Time (AHT), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), team’s KPI performance etc. This will also enable management to perform “damage control” instantly before things get out of hand if a customer isn’t managed well by a customer service agent.

So if your business needs revolves around making more data driven decisions, this purpose built BI tool might just be the one you’re looking for.

Lava is an authorised Salesforce Partner in Malaysia and has more than 9 years of cloud solutions, CRM implementation and consultation experience. We pride ourselves in not just being a CRM partner but in also understanding the needs of our customers and taking their business to the next level.