Kirill Yurovskiy, a Business Analyst:
– For my long professional career as a business analyst in London, I’ve worked with many small enterprises showing them how business analytics tools can revolutionize efficiency and growth. In this article I share my advice on how to properly use data for your small business as well.
Whether you run a neighborhood retail store, a flower shop, a local online service, or any small business, with business analytics tools you can solve problems of inventory management, increasing profitability, engagement, retention and increasing customer lifetime value, and more. Even at the basic stage of implementing sales or customer analytics, the return will amount to from 15% to 30%.
What to Start with in a World of Business Analytics
For SMEs owners who daily have to perform many business roles, the world of business analytics might seem overwhelming. It is too much for my strength – is the most common answer. Fortune favors the brave! If you divide the whole scope into performable stages, pretty soon you will see yourself that the advantages exceed the initial difficulties.
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Determine Your Company’s Goals
First of all, clearly determine what you want to achieve. Revenue boost, client retention, or operations simplification, whatever? Your analytics strategy comes from your goals and each goal helps you focus on the most pertinent information.
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Evaluate Your Present Data Circumstance
Extract and examine the data you have now. The majority of businesses, especially tiny ones, do have a wealth of data, but let it go unnoticed. Sales logs, customer information, website traffic statistics, and social media engagement metrics to name but a few. Click the link to learn more.
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Pick the Suitable Tools
No need to immediately spend money on pricey, sophisticated software. Use what you feel comfortable with, if you’re accustomed to spreadsheets, start with them. You can think of advanced solutions as you become more adept at data analysis. The most popular programs are customer relationship management (CRM) for sales and customer data or Google Analytics for web data.
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Establish Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Choose a few number of important metrics that are in line with your company’s goals. For example, a retail company can check the average transaction value, client acquisition cost, and repeat purchase rate. A service company may look at the profit margin per project, project completion time, and client retention rate.
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From Newbie to Wizard
Step by step strategy is the best one for mastering data analytics. Don’t jump into a maze of data, it is better to select one or two KPIs to start with. As soon as you acquire the initial skills, you will keep making progress and see results.
Increasing Your Proficiency in Business Analytics
It’s time to leap forward in analytics skills. To enjoy the benefits of your efforts, follow these steps:
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Data Quality Matters
The more data you collect, the more accurate and consistent it shall be, otherwise unreliable analytics can affect your whole business. Take care of reviewing and cleaning your data, eliminating duplicates, fixing errors, and adding missing details.
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Data Visualization Helps
Data Viz tools are intended to facilitate your work with data and help properly interpret it. There are special programs to quickly convert data into graphics or diagrams, where the most used are Tableau or Microsoft Power BI. It’s up to you which one to apply, but any of them help you to deliver data undamaged and clear to your team or stakeholders.
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Apply Predictive Analytics
By this point, you’ve learned to analyze past events data, it is so-called descriptive analytics. Now learn to predict data and acquire the competence called predictive analysis meaning predicting future patterns based on market state and your business historical data for a certain period.
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External Data Sources Boost Your Progress
Track any information on your industry from any source. Either together or separately, market research papers, expert opinions, economic indicators combined with your internal business data form a powerful information springboard to the next level of your success..
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Cloud-Based Services and Data Security
Cloud services are an ideal solution for small businesses. No matter how your needs and volumes of information grow, analytics platforms offer tools for both small turnover and potential business expansion. Distributed servers and constant monitoring are guaranteed protection of your data stored on these services.
Small Businesses and Business Analytics. The Future
As technology develops and becomes cheaper, business analytics for small businesses becomes more affordable and effective. I here highlight three main benefits for small business owners:
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Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
AI enriches our lives, primarily in the areas of analysis and computing. It automates most of the data analysis, providing ready results without requiring technical knowledge from a human. By understanding and processing voice queries in any language, AI simplifies user interaction and saves time and costs on analysis
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Internet of Things (IoT)
More connected devices mean more real-time information and more accurate descriptive and predictive analysis. For you, this means impeccable inventory management, customer service and operational efficiency.
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Augmented Analytics. The next AI stages
This emerging field combines AI and machine learning to automate data preparation, insight discovery, and insight sharing. It has the potential to make advanced analytics accessible to even the smallest businesses.
This tool automates data preparation, information discovering and sharing. Augmented analytics will soon be available to even the smallest businesses. Keep up with technology and your SME will thrive.