While large, Fortune 500 companies have been using business intelligence (BI) for a number of years now, it is only recently that non-profit organizations have started leveraging this technology to make better business decisions. Non-profits are constantly weighing the merits of the projects they implement, not only in terms of their connection to their advocacies but also in terms of metrics such as return on investment. Gone are the days when non-profits had carte blanche to spend donations however they wished; donors and stakeholders alike are now demanding greater transparency and accountability for business decisions.
How does business intelligence empower non-profits? Let’s take the case of one of our clients – the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation – which embarked on an overhaul of its clinical trial management system recently. While data from clinical trials has always been there, access to it was severely limited by technological issues. Reporting was a long and tedious process and modifying current reports was bogged down by a slow development cycle. Zenpo Software Innovations implemented reporting solutions that allowed users to access data in real-time and gave them to rapidly deploy reports on the fly, giving them the ability to determine which metrics to focus on at any time.
As a result of improved reporting and BI tools, both users and project stakeholders were able to measure clinical trial performance according to enrollment status, site activity, and enrollment count and to identify those that exhibited encouraging results. The usage rate among individuals with cystic fibrosis also rose as BI tools matched them with trials that met their eligibility and location, among other criteria.
Zenpo Software’s experience with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation shows that business intelligence is crucial to optimizing the operations of non-profits, helping organizations find and allocate resources to support ground-breaking research, and equipping them with the information needed to make smarter business decisions.