A quick clarification:
Regardless of what Dave’s most recent post may have implied… I still work here.
And now that fall classes have begun, I am learning from all angles. So the topic of this week’s blog is…
Databases
Why you might want one?
It is all too common for business owners to implement Excel spreadsheets to track all aspects of their company. From accounting to HR, Excel can store information about anything… but only in two dimensions. As you start tracking data in multiple spreadsheets on different employee’s machines duplicate data, inconsistent data, and other data quality issues will start to creep into your company information. But an effective database can help you solve these problems and benefit your whole organization.
What are the benefits?
The obvious benefit is that all of your information, be it about customers, employees, transactions, or products, will all be on exactly one place. When each piece of data is stored exactly once in a database, changes can be made to that data throughout the system in only one place (rather than on everyone’s personal desktop spreadsheets). This ensures all employees access to correct information.
The marketing benefit is that when you want to use consumer data to draw marketing conclusions or create new marketing strategies, you have access to all of your information at once. You can THEN take any fields from that trusty database into your beloved Excel to create graphs, charts and manipulate it for your marketing analysis.
Looking to make the switch? CHECK OUT THESE TIPS for selecting the database that’s right for your business.