Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Henry Brown

Over time businesses in all industries and sectors accumulate data. If your company has social media pages, a website, or accepts payments electronically, your business more than likely has data available across multiple platforms.

For example, Google Analytics analyses and records website data, such as the number of views, and the devices people used to access your site. Social media business pages enable you to view your company pages analytics also, such as the age and demographic of your audience.

However, while a lot of data exists, not all companies are harnessing its potential and power, even though it could help improve various aspects of the business.

For an overview of data’s significance in the workplace, below are three ways data can help businesses thrive. Depending on the industry and amount of data, in some cases, it’s beneficial to hire services such as Bioinformatics to analyze the data on your behalf.

Enhance decision-making

Business owners have to make decisions almost every day. And while their gut instinct, the media, and current affairs in the company may sway those decisions, it’s wiser to make them based on concrete data.

Using data correctly can help company owners increase customer retention, boost sales, and make better decisions about their marketing strategies. With data onside, the decision-makers can make smarter choices.

Solve problems

When something goes wrong in business, whether the output from your production line is decreased by 20% or you’re receiving complaints from customers who say the products they received are faulty, you have to initiate an investigation or delegate someone on your behalf to do so, to find the root of the problem.

While talking to members of the production line and the suppliers is part of that process, data can also help you to find when and where the issue occurred. For instance, you may be able to trace back the details of the customers’ transactions who received faulty products and analyze whether these products were purchased around a similar time. Moreover, with the serial numbers of the products identified on the receipts, you may be able to distinguish at what point and where the product was manufactured and assembled.

Different modes of data enable small business owners to piece together where and how a problem occurred. By gaining clarification on an issue with data assistance, managers can seek to improve processes to prevent the same fault from reoccurring. Examples of solutions might include enhanced employee training to prevent new employees from making the same mistakes.

Refine your target audience

Before you started your business, you likely collected research to determine your target audience. However, as time moves on, a business’s target audience changes. Data will enable you to specify this change, giving you insight into the age, demographic, and even spending habits of your consumers.

Data is a powerful asset for understanding your customers. That gives you the knowledge of how to strategically tailor and refine your product or service to continue attracting the target audience.

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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.