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Looking to build an analytics company and need help with what to focus on
Gerin
subscriber Posts: 2 Member
I am still in my 9-to-5 where I work in extracting stories from data to facilitate effective decision making for our executive team. I've become fascinated with the contrast of how a Fortune 500 company employs thousands of Analysts to interpret data for the ultimate goal to win more sales & customers to how small business owners in my family virtually use no data analysis in their business operations. My inkling is that the type of work Analysts do for large corporations in regards to converting raw data into reporting that monitors sales performance/customer engagement, identifies opportunities to grow market share, and/or forecasts sales/demand could be applied on a smaller scale to help smaller businesses. I would love to hear from you all about any advice you for what to focus on and any answers to the following questions.
1) What is your biggest challenge with analytics?
2) What is your biggest hope related to analytics?
Thanks so much!
Comments
Hi Gerin,
1) Data gathering and accuracy. You may not be able to gather all the data you need. People sometimes are unwilling to share their information. You may not able to get the accurate data. For example, customers 'logically' answer your survey, but they make 'emotionally' decision.
2) Data mining. How you relate all the data, process them and produce meaningful result.
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Great topic Gerin!
I think the key in turning data into useful information for small businesses is to find the right set of KPIs for that business. That sounds overly simple, but what I see in working with small businesses is they are not ready to get into the lower level analytics.
The other trend I see is that many small business owners are great at sales......many times good sales people are not great at the books and focusing on metrics!
I believe there is a huge need in the small business market for analytics and meaningful score cards around -
top line, bottom line, direct spend, indirect spend, year over year trending, monthly trending, and performance toward straight forward and simple annual goals.
I love the idea of helping small businesses act like 'the big guys', but from what I see the initial gap is getting them on a good foundation of tracking how their business is doing and moving toward a data driven approach to their business.
Just my two cents!