(Our blog series aims to provide non-technical business context information aimed at Small and Medium sized Businesses.)
Everyday our life is becoming more digital than the previous day. From email to self driving cars, we are increasingly digitally connected. Most of the day-to-day business functions are being automated with bots, that chat with us, email us and predict the email we write !! While most businesses accumulate data, good quality data will be the key to separating winners from losers.
Large corporations (Google, Facebook and a host of other Big Tech) have resources at their disposal to leverage their data and to their advantage, but not all SMBs can afford such resources and can’t match the Large corporations. There’s a lot to be desired.
So, while the Big Tech thrive on your data, can YOUR OWN business not thrive with YOUR OWN Data ? Good news is, the transformation has begun in SMB sector towards that.
For a start, here are 3 Tips to leverage your data.
- Streamline process to collect data
- Consolidate the collected data
- Assess / Analyze the data
Streamline process to collect data
SMBs can look into their basic processes, like Accounting, Operations, Sales & Forecasting to be streamlined as a first step. Traditional data maintained in disparate systems, for eg., Spreadsheet, CRM tools, emails, etc., can be converted into structured data. This step is the building block that would facilitate the application of Intelligent Analytical Tools subsequently.
Consolidate the Collected Data
The data collected needs to be consolidated and standardized. The standardized data bridges the gap between raw data and meaningful information, with the application of Intelligent Analytics over it.
Assess / Analyze the data
Small Businesses around the globe are beginning to apply various analytical tools and techniques, either homegrown or commercially available, to this unending stream of data to gather intelligence to make business decisions. They gain insight into their customers, their operations and their competition. This information can be meaningfully applied to provide personalized product recommendations in the ecommerce site.