Data is a valuable asset to all businesses. This doesn’t mean that you have to spend your days and nights scouring spreadsheets, but you should pay attention to information that helps you propel your business forward. Today, Clicks Talent dives a bit deeper into the why and how you should and can use data in your own business.
Efficiency
If you are looking for ways to boost the efficiency and productivity of your business, look no further than data on everything from turnaround time to how your workflow processes are currently generated. One of the simplest ways to get data for this is to utilize BPM strategies. A BPM strategy is essentially a series of recurrent steps that have to be taken to achieve a specific business goal.
Let’s think about HR. Your BPM might automate vacation approvals. Without software in place to automatically forward this from HR to managers or other department heads, there would be a lot of paperwork, which can slow down several members of your staff. We can’t tell you what specific business process management strategies to employ, only that they should analyze how your data, people, and systems work together and that you should monitor them and act on insight that helps you run your business more efficiently.
Marketing
Marketing is one of the most important ways that data can help your business. You might, for example, look at previous years to get a better idea of what you sell during the busiest selling seasons. You can also pick through your customer files to determine an ideal demographic. Using this type of information, you can cater your marketing plans to those groups who are most likely to buy from you. You can also look at the statistics on using social media, which may encourage you to branch out into modern-day marketing methods, such as using Instagram.
There are a couple of different routes you can go here; one is influencer marketing, which can average more than 1.7 million views and reach nearly 8 million people. However, if you are just starting out and don’t have a budget, you can build your brand awareness campaign and build your community by opening your own social media and using templates to get your message across. You can change photos, typeset, and sizing to best match your needs.
Budgeting
A data-driven business should also utilize data when budgeting for everything from marketing to payroll. Search Engine Watch explains the best way to use data to budget is to identify your financial goals. Using the marketing example again, you can also pull data from previous marketing campaigns so that you can best focus your attention (and dollars) on the right platforms.
Recruiting
Your human resources department can also use things like job offer acceptance rates, time to hire, and new hire turnover to make more effective decisions when it’s time to onboard new employees.
Forecasting
If you’ve never performed a sales forecast before, now’s the time to start. Essentially, sales forecasting helps you predict how much you can expect to sell your company’s product or services within a specified timeframe. For this, you will need to use both recent and historical sales data, which should also take into consideration your business’s growth and any new competition that may be stealing a piece of your market.
If you’re not already using data-gathering tools, such as Google Analytics or Survey Monkey, you’re doing your business a disservice. Data, and the business process management tactics that you employ in response to it, can help your business grow and keep you ahead of the competition for the long haul.
Guest Post by Cody Mcbride.