When running a business, we always seem to have so much to do. It is so easy to get overwhelmed by the handling of everyday operational tasks that things like planning and strategic thinking get cast aside.
However, if you want your business endeavour to be as economically successful as possible and achieve all your business goals, you must consider the big picture and look for ways to push forward.
Capturing data using various data platforms is critical for this, and there are many reasons why this is something that you should be prioritising.
It saves you time
One of the reasons you need to capture data regularly is because it will save you and your business team time. It sounds counterproductive – it’s another task, after all-, but trust us when we say it will work in the long run. Data helps you better understand your business processes and allows you to make improvements as required. The more information you have about processes, the areas where bottlenecks are forming will be more obvious, allowing you to deal with them and speeding up the process as a result.
It will also help you save time in your marketing efforts. Guesswork and bad decisions here are huge time and money wasters, but looking at up-to-date data allows you to see what channels and campaigns are working, which need tweaking and a complete overhaul.
You can also outsource data capture for these particular areas, giving you and your team more time to work on other tasks pertinent to your business.
It saves money
Following on from above, once you have stopped wasting valuable time, you will cut costs. You won’t be paying employees to work on unnecessary tasks, and as labour costs tend to be the biggest expense for most businesses, this is crucial. If you can do something that requires fewer hours from people or if you can reallocate these resources more effectively, you will find you will save significant amounts of money.
It gives you a competitive advantage
We all want that competitive edge over the other players in our industry, and data capture can help you to achieve this.
The more useful information you can access, the better insight you will have into your market, customers, and competitors. This will enable you to make better strategic decisions with short- and long-term benefits.
It reduces the margin for error
Another advantage of data capture is the reduced margin for error. When you rely on traditional, manual data entry for tracking and analysing, you are much more likely to make mistakes. After all, we are only humans! Transferring information from person to person or department to department also increases the risk of mistakes or data being lost. Data capture tools and technology will file, store, and retrieve information accurately and quickly.
All of the above advantages are because you can access information that can inform every area of your business. If you are not using data capture effectively, now is the time to start.
Nancy Baker
Admin
Vitaly Kuprenko