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We live in the information age, and so it stands to reason that one of the most valuable assets there is, is data. However, not all small businesses are leveraging the power of big data to its full potential, something that means they are missing out on a valuable comparative edge. The good news is that you can find three of the most effective ways to harness the power of big data in your small business below. Keep reading to find out what they are.
Boost your sales
One of the most obvious and popular uses for big data in small businesses is to improve sales. After all, the more you know about what your customer wants, the better you can tailor your products, marketing, and services to suit them. Therefore ensuring they have the best experience possible and are likely not only to buy from you once but come back time and time again.
Of course, to be able to leverage this information in a meaningful way, it’s vital that you collect the right data. There are plenty of ways to do this from asking customers to sign up for accounts on your website, to getting your customer service team to ask the right questions.
However, one of the most effective ways of collecting this type of data is by using ai automation for your crm to do it for you. Indeed, instead of having to rely on your sales or service people to ask the right questions and record the data, it will be done automatically so you can always be sure you have the most up-to-date info on which to make your business decisions.
Make your processes (and productivity) better
As the old phrase goes, in business ‘time is money.’ Fortunately, by leveraging the right data you can ensure your company works in the most productive way possible. The benefits of this being that you can shorten processes and so save a great deal of money on things such as resources and person-power.
Of course, this does mean capturing data as you work, but there are plenty of effective ways of doing this. The first which can work particularly well for home businesses is to use a productivity app on your computer which can break down how long you are spending on certain tasks.
For larger businesses the use of RFID tech can be helpful here because it means you can gather data on how long items take to get to certain points in your process, something that will show you where there are any hold-ups and bottlenecks that could be improved.
Improve forecasting and planning
Last, of all, you can use big data to forecast and better plan for the needs of your business. Indeed, there is plenty of info that can be useful here from data on stock levels that help you order more before it becomes a problem, to website data that indicates the prospective popularity of a product even before its launch.
With that in mind, making sure you capture the right operational data from your small business is essential if you want to make it big!