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Important Factors to Consider While Building a Business Intelligence Programme for Your Organisation
By Hyther Nizam, President – MEA, Zoho Corp
With digital transformation picking up faster than ever before in the business landscape, most organisations today employ a mix of business tools to run their operations across sales, marketing, finance, HR, etc. More often than not, all of these tools include a reporting module that displays department-specific data records and statements. However, stand-alone data like sales figures, lead numbers, email open rates, and the like, can only tell you so much about customer behaviour.
As businesses continue to go digital and become increasingly data-driven, it’s imperative for them to include a holistic business intelligence (BI) programme in their technology strategy. A comprehensive BI programme helps combine various data points from multiple sources, perform cross-functional analysis, and bring out intuitive insights like inspirations behind seasonal customer trends, reasons for supply-chain gaps, sales funnel pain points gathered from customer feedback, productivity drops due to employee attrition, future trend predictions, and whatnot. Powerful information like this can enable organisations to adopt a culture of smart, evidence-based decision-making and gain a true competitive edge.
Getting started with a business analytics and intelligence program
Provided that your organisation has the necessary funding and resources to implement a central BI programme, the first natural step is to identify the key business metrics you want to compute and track.
As pointed out here, once you have identified the goals, the next step is defining a data strategy. You need to go about defining your data strategy for key focus areas and then identify and align its data sources with that strategy. From there, it should be relatively simple for the organisation to build a data pipeline and prepare the data for analysis.
Building a robust, unified data pipeline from disparate sources
Prepping the data pipeline is one of the biggest challenges organisations face while implementing their BI programme. Using a mixed toolset offered by different vendors translates to disparate data sets that need to first be integrated, blended, and unified to enable a(n) smoother as well as accurate analysis procedure. In fact, it’s been noted that 80% of analysis time is spent on data preparation as poor quality data often results in untrustworthy business insights.
This is where BI tools that include data preparation provisions come in handy. Be it a custom-built BI program or a bespoke tool, it’s important that your option incorporates data-prepping and blending capabilities, i.e., ability to connect to different sources (legacy or cloud app) and port data in different formats, clean and remove duplicates, blend the data into a single data warehouse, and improve the overall data quality. This helps ensure robust, error-free data pipelines, in turn assuring reliable business intel.
Updating your privacy practices and official policy
With a BI programme, your obligation as a company to protect customer data becomes greater. Some privacy practices to keep in mind include, (1) masking critical user data, i.e., removing personally identifiable information from all data sets using anonymization methods, before feeding them into the BI data pipeline, (2) collecting explicit consent from the data subjects (customers and employees) to use their anonymized data for BI analysis, (3) ensuring that your data sources are also subject to stringent privacy standards, and finally, (4) updating your organisation’s customer privacy policy straight away to include required details about your BI programme.
Integrating your BI program with internal collaboration platforms
Despite setting up a cost-intensive, comprehensive BI programme, many organisations struggle to drive adoption among their teams and prompt necessary action or decision-making. One way to solve this is to integrate the BI system widely and deeply across internal communication and collaboration platforms used by employees such as email, chat, intranet forums, project management avenues, etc. The BI dashboards must allow executives to blend and visually analyse data for cross-functional insights, fashion the insights into easily understandable and interactive reports, decide the next course of action, and subsequently share the information with the teams or individuals concerned in real time.
Staying future-ready – leave room for innovation
As you implement modern technologies and boost your operational efficiencies, running a future-ready business also includes being constantly on the lookout for innovation, and ensuring that the business systems and processes are elastic enough to absorb the change. Similarly, your BI programme should have enough legroom to experiment and capitalise on emerging opportunities like AI-powered voice analytics and RPA/business analytics integration. For instance, current AI trends have made it possible for users to hold conversations with AI assistants to generate automated BI insights with a single click, predict future trends, conduct as well as visualise cognitive and what-if analyses, and much more.
If the events of the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that things can change incredibly quickly and it’s vital to be flexible. Cloud-based BI tools enable business owners to look at real-time data from across departments. to make quick decisions. This helps businesses stay nimble during unprecedented times.
David Adedeji Adeleke, known professionally as Davido, has shared his past suicidal thoughts as he dropped Oriadé, his sixth studio album yesterday.
Davido
Davido said he chose the date on purpose as it marks exactly 15 years since he began his professional music career.
Oriadé is a Yoruba word combining “Ori,” meaning destiny, and “Adé,” meaning crown.
It translates to “the crowned head.” The album has 13 tracks and features Black Sherif, Aya Nakamura, Leon Thomas, Mayorkun, and Llona.
It follows his 2025 project, 5ive, which reached number two on the Billboard World Albums chart.
Davido also announced an international tour to support the new record.
In the days leading up to the release, Davido gave interviews that revealed personal details about his past and his current life.
Speaking to Vibe Magazine on Thursday, he described a 2014 incident in Ghana that left him feeling suicidal.
He said he invited a woman back to his hotel room after a show, and she later posted a photo of him sleeping online.
He said the fallout overwhelmed him.
“My daddy was calling me. My sisters were calling me. If I saw the balcony that day, I would have jumped,” he said.
He said he was young at the time and did not fully understand the consequences of his actions.
He described the experience as a turning point that changed how he thinks about privacy and fame.
In the same interview, he explained why he often dresses down in public despite his wealth.
He recalled a trip to the South of France where he went out in shorts and slippers without his watch.
“I’ve been on jets, I’ve been flying, I’ve been in all these places since I was a baby. I’ve been seeing money since I was a baby. So all these things don’t really excite me,” he said.
He added that he sometimes prefers to drive a Toyota to the supermarket in Atlanta instead of one of his luxury cars.
In a separate livestream with Davrel, Davido spoke about how his life has changed since marrying his wife, Chioma, and becoming a father.
He said his home no longer holds the large crowds it once did.
“I can no longer have 100 people in my house like before,” he said.
He said he speaks to Chioma every day regardless of his schedule.
He also disclosed that he spends between $200,000 and $300,000 a month on himself, not including costs for his wife, children, jewelry and cars.
He said the amount is lower when he is in the United States, where he described his lifestyle as quieter.
Africa Prudential Plc has reaffirmed its commitment to digital transformation, revenue diversification and sustainable growth after reporting a strong financial performance for the first half of 2026.
Dr Catherine Nwosu
The company made this known during its H1 2026 Investor Call, which brought together institutional investors, shareholders, investment analysts, regulators and other stakeholders to review its financial performance and strategic outlook.
Dr Catherine Nwosu, managing director and Chief Executive Officer of Africa Prudential, said the company’s performance reflected the resilience of its business model and the effectiveness of its long-term growth strategy despite prevailing macroeconomic challenges.
According to the company’s financial results, gross earnings rose by 27 per cent year-on-year to N4.28 billion, from N3.34 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2025.
Profit before tax increased by 22 per cent to N2.41 billion, while profit after tax grew by 18 per cent to N1.59 billion.
The company also reported a 27 per cent rise in net operating income to N4.21 billion, while total assets increased by 13 per cent to N46.53 billion.
Shareholders’ funds equally rose by 13 per cent to N12.52 billion, reflecting continued financial strength.
Management attributed the performance to sustained growth in its core registrar business, increased corporate action activities in the Nigerian capital market, improved treasury earnings and rising adoption of its technology-driven solutions.
The company said it was steadily transforming from a traditional share registrar into a broader technology and business solutions provider serving Nigeria’s capital market ecosystem.
During the interactive session, investors sought clarification on the sustainability of earnings, particularly as interest rates are expected to moderate.
Responding, Nwosu said the company was deliberately expanding its recurring fee-based revenue streams to reduce dependence on treasury income.
“Interest rates influence our treasury income positively, but that is why we are deliberately diversifying our revenue streams.
“Our strategy is to grow recurring fee-based business lines such as our digital solutions, Know Your Customer (KYC) services, Annual General Meeting (AGM) technology, probate services and the SabiVest mobile app.
“Over time, this will reduce our reliance on interest income and create a more balanced and resilient earnings mix,” she said.
Nwosu noted that increasing capital market activities had created stronger demand for seamless digital investor experiences, improved operational efficiency and enhanced compliance solutions.
She said the company would continue investing in technology-enabled products capable of delivering long-term value to shareholders while strengthening its competitive position.
According to her, Africa Prudential has identified five strategic priorities for the second half of 2026.
The priorities include driving sustainable growth across its core registrar and emerging business lines, accelerating technology-led product innovation, strengthening brand leadership, investing in talent development and deepening corporate governance.
She said the investor engagement demonstrated the company’s commitment to transparency, accountability and regular engagement with shareholders and the investment community.
Africa Prudential reaffirmed its commitment to leveraging innovation, operational excellence and sound financial management to sustain growth and strengthen its leadership position in Nigeria’s capital market.
Gugu Gumede and S’Dumo Mtshali, the power couple in Netflix’s telenovela, The Polygamist, will be guest on this week’s edition of African Voices, which is sponsored by Globacom on Cable News Network (CNN).
The 22-episode sitcom focuses on the misadventures of an adulterous spouse who unknowingly entangles his family in the difficulties of polygamy.
The film depicts a series of intrigues, betrayals, and other events that shattered the harmony of a once-perfect marriage.
The fictional couple in Johannesburg are interviewed by the programme’s anchor, Larry Madowo, for a 30-minute show in which they discuss their personal experiences and the difficulties they have in the film industry, such as coping with popularity and typecasting and advocating for more actor protections.
Gumede, a 34-year-old South African who attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles to study acting, portrayed Joyce Gomora in the telenovela.
In addition to her part in The Polygamist, Gumede has portrayed Mamlambo, a prophetess on “Uzalo”, the most watched television program in South Africa, and Mandisa in “Generations”, one of the country’s most popular series.
Mtshali, a 43-year-old South African actor who portrayed Jonasi Gomora, gained notoriety in 2010 after competing in and winning the SABC1 reality program, “Class Act”. In the same year, he landed his first major part in the drama series “Intersexions” on SABC1.
Among other films, he has starred in “Inside Story” (2011), “Avenged” (2013), “iNumber Number: Jozi Gold” (2023), “Back of the Moon”, and “The Four of Us” (2025).
This special double-cast episode will feature on DSTV channel 401 on Saturday at 8a.m. It will be repeated same day at 11a.m., Sunday at 3.30a.m.,6p.m., Monday at 3a.m. and 5.45p.m. as well as on Tuesday,5.45p.m.
The repeats continue next week Saturday at 7.30a.m., 11a.m.;Sunday 3.30a.m., 6p.m.,and on Monday at 3a.m.
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