While reading a datadoodle blog post, Self tracking is business intelligence, I was taken back to my days in the advertising and PR agency world. The blog references Peter Drucker’s book, The Effective Executive that suggests tracking your day (or having your secretary do it) in increments of 15 minutes to monitor productively. This was a regular mindset in the agency – minus the secretary. After all, we were billing time to the clients. Delineating and accounting for work based on different projects and clients was the lifeblood in that setting. The same would go for lawyers.

But what about in other business environments? How does this tracking, this “business intelligence” – or “personal intelligence” (PI) as datadoodle describes it – contribute to productivity? It certainly surfaces exactly how time is spent. You can see inefficiencies, make conclusions on why there are so many distractions during the workday and find ways to eliminate or lessen them. Alternatively, you can uncover what’s working well – does a particular time of day or year seem to be more productive; why? And if so, do more of that. This scrutiny and self-questioning is all in an effort to get more work done and become more profitable, whether you’re self-employed or supporting a larger company.

It’s no wonder organizations employ business intelligence solutions or, on a broader scale, a business analytics framework to clearly view their internal and external transactions, processes and results. Those who keep better track and analyze every aspect of the business are sure to gain market share.

Consider The Wine House, who discovered $400,000 in lost inventory, or Visa, who analyzes profitability to drive pricing strategy, product placement and incentives with such technologies. More examples and thought leader insights on business analytics can be found in a free sascom report: Brain Trust: Enabling the confident enterprise with business analytics.