SME and LME’s both have to manage data. We cannot show indifference (or be negligent) towards data management. It is a mandatory management process. Why? Because managing data is fundamental to any business operation.
How you capture data, store it, manage it, analyze it, share it, understand it and decide on it can be a major competitive factor.
Data collected at the various levels in businesses should port and reach the top level for better (best) day-to-day decision-making. And, also this information/data can be aligned for growth-oriented strategic decisions.
Based on this information/data businesses can have knowledge at the same time can predict any changes that might impact the business (that are immediate or in the future). For this, the right sieved information should be at your fingers and in front of your eyes always for any business.
Business cannot sustain unless you understand the importance of data management (collecting, storing, analyzing, sharing, understanding, reacting, deciding (decisions), applying) and implementing it.
Also, the available information can be utilized or analyzed by different business operation units in the business. For example, looking at the information one can analyze a particular trend or pattern in the business.
If one particular product is moving fast, if demand for that product is high in every outlet that you own, depending on the previous stock, current available stock and demand one can decide how much stock can be ordered further that might be reasonable.
This can minimize overstocking the goods, can minimize the purchases (cost of holding the stock) at the same time your customer is not turned down without of stock sign. This can retain your best customers by not driving them into your competitor’s stores. At the same time, you can maintain good/happy relations with your partners and stakeholders.
This is just one example. We can imagine many more scenarios on the usefulness of having 360-degree insightful information available 365 days, 24/7 depending on where your businesses are located geographically and also at all levels of operations vertically from bottom to top-level as well as horizontally in businesses.
There are many resources (products) available externally in the market, known as data analytics. These can help you in presenting your complex data in a simpler format for analysis within a few minutes for business users.
The available data, that is transformed into information (Ex: YoY, QoQ, MoM, WoW Reports/Graphs) can be ported in different document formats and can be exchanged through different channels (emails or on Mobile phones) within no time.
However, merely having the product doesn’t help your business. How strategically you are managing it with available resources does matter. Depending on your business scale, level of operations and available resources you can choose one as there are plenty of choices out there.
The product can be based on some of the factors like its flexibility (ease of use), portability (that fits on top of your existing systems), support (now and in future, also the size of community) versus your business scale (size) and future growth.
Thus, empower the power of your business with proper data management.