AI-powered Business Intelligence: From theoretical long-term promise into tangible immediate growth for business
By Rakesh Prabhakar (pictured), Head of Zoho Australia and New Zealand
No technology has generated greater hype or investment since the invention of the internet than Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Even conservative estimates – of which each day there appear to be fewer and fewer – suggest it will create unprecedented productivity, growth and insight. However, much of the conversation, attention and investment has come in the context of big businesses. But what about in the context of small businesses, of which there are 2.5 million in Australia?
Without the budgets or resources of bigger businesses, SMBs have been disproportionately impacted by economic pressures in recent years. Insolvencies have surged, and among those who continue to operate, there have been challenges. According to Zoho research, 89% of SMBs said their operating costs had increased in the last 18 months, while three quarters (73.9%) have seen their revenue slow.
In spite of these headwinds, there’s growing optimism that we’ve reached an inflection point, with almost half (46.6%) expecting their cash flow to increase in the next three to 12 months. Even more are optimistic about their growth opportunities beyond that. The research found that the second biggest priority for SMBs in 2025 – after simply staying afloat – is automating or digitising their business. So what role might AI-powered Business Intelligence (BI) play in their recovery?
Business intelligence builds intelligent businesses
While almost every industry has become transfixed by AI and its potential to change the way we live and work, one of the most tangible examples of it in a business context is BI – which it underpins. BI is the technology and processes through which businesses collect and analyse data, and turn it into easy-to-comprehend insights and actionable strategies.
BI helps SMBs replace guesswork with data-driven decisions that reveal trends and key performance metrics. For example, an SMB could use BI to understand the ROI from particular marketing campaigns or channels, or anticipated annual cash flow based on both historic performance and external factors.
Through BI, SMBs can better understand their internal operations, their customers, and their industry.
This improves their decision-making process and ability to mitigate challenges and generate growth.
Here’s how it does so in the context of improving internal operations, boosting bottom lines, and reducing customer churn.
Internal operations
When it comes to optimising internal operations, use cases are almost limitless, but let’s consider it in the context of optimising teams. Small businesses often struggle to balance workloads and ownership across teams. Some employees or departments might be underutilised, while others are stretched too thin; this creates burnout, inefficiencies, and even resentment.
However, BI enables a business to analyse data – taken from sources like time tracking software, project management systems, or a CRM – to provide a real-time view of workload. Then the SMB can better determine how to distribute workloads, based on not just capacity but skills and competencies too. It can even analyse upcoming projects or seasonal spikes. Think of that in the context of accountants during key EOFY deadlines.
Bottom lines
Every dollar matters and many SMBs today are focusing as closely as ever on their bottom line. Indeed, our research shows that three in four SMBs have had to raise prices to offset the increase to their operating costs. But with BI SMBs don’t automatically need to raise costs to protect their bottom line.
Think of inventory management. Managing stock levels is crucial to avoid over stocking, which ties up capital and space, and under stocking which can result in missed sales and lost revenue. For retailers, for example, it’s crucial to have a clear understanding of their stock levels across physical and online stores – which isn’t easy for small retailers.
BI can immediately tell a business what inventory it has, and where it is, but also analyse past sales data, seasonal trends and even external factors like holidays and pop culture events to forecast future demand; providing recommendations on what to purchase more of, and what excess stock could benefit from a discounted sales push. The result of such insights on cash flow and bottom line profitability is immediate. This isn’t just the case for retailers, but any business. And it’s not just the case for inventory management, but numerous processes.
Marketing for growth
Marketing is a critical growth engine, especially today when attention – and loyalty – is hard to earn.
When effective, its impact on customer acquisition, retention and revenue can be significant. BI can enable small businesses to understand the effectiveness of both campaigns and channels. It’s not always easy to understand whether channels or campaigns are delivering the desired results, especially if running more than one at a time.
Through AI-powered-BI platforms like Zoho Analytics, businesses can use conversational prompts like ‘which of my marketing channels and campaigns are driving the best ROI?’ to receive visualised reports showing everything from the number of leads to the cost-per-acquisition from every channel and every campaign. Through this powerful, intelligent, flexible, and simple to use platform, it’s far easier to understand how to assign future marketing spend to drive the best business results.
AI-powered BI enables small businesses to turn data into informed, strategic decisions to improve operational efficiency, bottom lines and growth opportunities. The challenges facing small businesses are severe, but through AI-powered BI, they now have something that can generate tangible immediate growth, rather than just offering theoretical long-term promise.
