Daily restaurant sales data was analyzed and available for marketing the following afternoon so the department could immediately align their marketing spending to an area's sales, he said.

At Sensata, previous internal data-analysis efforts generated reports with information already known to the company.

Now, analyzing internal and external data together allows the company "to get ahead of the curve as opposed to continuing to look back," said Stefanic.

In addition to identifying trends, finding value in the data leads to more acceptance of business intelligence efforts, he said.

"Once we can share with the organization how they can see patterns forming, the adopt rate goes up tremendously."