Month: August 2013

Given the abundance of new technologies that have proliferated corporate environments in recent years, one would think we have reached  the peak of IT innovation. Think again.

While advancements have been made in cloud computing, mobility, data management and many other key areas of business in the last five years or so, we have not reached the end of technological evolution. In fact, we could just be getting started.

An article in the Harvard Business Review suggests we have just hit the beginning of the next digital wave, meaning new innovative technologies are right around the corner and more areas of our life will be digitized. This makes sense when you consider arguably the biggest change in technology coming down the pipeline: the internet of things.

This essentially suggests everything we use in our daily lives will be connected to an online network. We’ll be able to use our coffee makers to share with Facebook every time we make a fresh pot and our vacuum cleaners will tell us the last time we used them, giving us an idea of when we should vacuum again. These examples are obviously somewhat extreme and will be used in the home, but the concept is very real and will have a major impact on businesses and the data they process.

Intel CIO Kim Stevenson spoke with the news source about the overall trend of new technologies. She indicated that recent innovations have really only laid the groundwork for this tsunami of digital devices, and warned businesses to prepare for the onslaught.

“[IT functions have] gone through ERP, they’ve gone through BYOD and they’ve gone through cloud, and they think they’ve done it all,” Stevenson said. “But the reality is, we’re only at the very, very beginning of this next generation of computing, and I think that…industry leaders will be the ones that transform first. I don’t care what industry you’re talking about.”

Perhaps the biggest challenge companies will face due to digital innovation is a major spike in data. Not only will information be more prevalent, companies will have to be more efficient when managing it if they want to maintain long-term viability in their industry. Capitalizing on innovation is what will allow businesses to succeed during this time. Building a custom database software system can provide organizations with the resources they need to effectively manage their information.

If there's one things banks have going for them, their access to information is unparalleled. Financial organizations process an almost infinite amount of data on a daily basis, which provides them with useful insights that they can later use to improve customer service, boost operational efficiency and identify risk, among many other applications. The problem is many banks are struggling to actually use their information correctly.

Lawrence Buettner of Wausau Financial Systems wrote a recent article for Bank Tech detailing his travels around the country. He visited a number of banks and other financial companies to talk about innovation and other tech-related topics with some of the nation's most prominent financial professionals. Typically, these conversations turned to data. More accurately, they spoke of their respective bank's mismanagement of its own information.

"We lost a major house account that was with the bank for decades because we could not meet their data needs to better manage their receivables," one banker told Buettner.

While this is clearly an unfortunate scenario, the worst part is that it's entirely avoidable. By implementing the right solutions, banks—or any company for that matter—can harness the power of their information and get the most out of it. Data should help an organization grow, not prevent it from succeeding.

Building a custom database software system will allow companies to effectively collect, process and monitor their information. Companies like banks that handle an enormous volume of data will be able to scale their systems and eliminate the risk of mismanaging their information.

Succeeding in a competitive market isn’t easy, particularly for small startups that have to go against larger and more established organizations. However, that didn’t stop Golden Road Brewing. The Los Angeles-based craft brewery has thrived because of its custom database software system.

Co-founder Meg Gill spoke with Inc. Magazine about her vision, her challenges and what helped her succeed in a tough industry. While hard work and resolve played a substantial role in her success, it was her understanding of how to manage information that really fueled her ability to compete in her market. She soon realized that data could improve virtually every aspect of her business, including the freshness of her beer, something she explained was crucial to her company.

“You can’t get to volume, and then to profitability, without fresh beer,” she said. “That’s something we live by. Even though our first year was incredibly successful, we learned that without comprehensive tracking and reporting systems for distribution and retail, we couldn’t control whether our beer was fresh.”

An article featured in Forbes picked up Gill’s story and suggested many small organizations don’t understand the power of quality data, which is why success in this space is never easy.

“Small and medium businesses (SMBs) face many challenges when it comes to basic infrastructure. Many times, spreadsheets are the only answer for running the business (inventory management, production schedules or sales process). As a result, manual reports proliferate and they are tough to manage and consolidate,” the article said.

Understanding the importance of not only digital information, but the ability to process it efficiently will go a long way toward helping any small company compete in its industry, regardless of what it is. Gill figured out early on that her database system, which she manages in the cloud, will help ensure the freshness of her beer, which keeps her product at the level of quality it needs to help her business grow. If her information was inaccurate and the freshness of her beer was compromised, it could have damaged her entire operation.

FileMaker development can allow companies to build a system that tracks data that’s important to them and store it in a similar cloud environment. This will allow businesses to grow as their solution scales up with their success.

All the data in the world may not amount to much of companies fail to make the most of their information.

When users collect and process data, they have to be able to think about it and do so quickly. Any hesitation to act based on the contents of an organization’s data could cause an organization to fall behind in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

This act is called analysis-paralysis, and was recently listed in a Bloomberg article as a bad habit data managers must break. Thomas Redman, the article’s author, explained the ramifications of this indecisiveness.

“Analysis-paralysis plagues people and companies that don’t deal well with uncertainty,” he wrote. “They can fall into the trap of seeking ‘just one more bit of confirmation’ before deciding. They delay, delay, delay, seeking to make the perfect decision. They don’t realize that not making a decision is a decision in itself and can have consequences. Delay too long and the competitor may introduce that new product line first, a great candidate may go elsewhere and an investor may withdraw its offer.”

While quick decision-making certainly requires effort from the individual tasked with analyzing the data, the process can be improved with the help of custom database software. Having the ability to collect, process, store and report on information in real time will alleviate the risk of waiting too long to make data-based decisions. This can improve the overall state of an organization by allowing it to stay ahead of its competition, rather than falling behind.

In a perfect world, customer retention would never be an issue. We would acquire new business, the relationship between ourselves and our customers would be perfect and they would stay with us forever. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and, sometimes, people leave us. While it’s a difficult topic to think about, it’s not necessarily devastating. An incident in this vein can actually be a positive. It all depends on what we make of it.

The most successful organizations don’t go about business assuming they will never lose a customer under any circumstances. Instead, they have systems and strategies in place to capitalize on a particular situation by obtaining all relevant information pertaining to the event and using it to improve the overall company. Ultimately, by keeping an eye on the churn rate, companies can make efforts to keep it down.

A recent article in Inc. Magazine listed five metrics every marketer should pay attention to. Churn was included because of all the important bits of information that can be processed whenever a customer leaves.

“Nobody likes to talk about churn because we all want to believe that no one would leave us and move on, but it happens and it’s an incredibly powerful metric,” wrote Janine Popick, the article’s author. “If you measure it consistently and over time, you will see any unusual spikes or valleys. And you can track those back to things that may have happened.”

Suppose your customers leave primarily during the summer, or what if churn occurs consistently after prices go up, or whenever your communication systems fail (like your website going down.) This information can be collected, processed and used to adjust certain aspects of operations accordingly. For example, if it’s determined that the majority of customers who leave do so during the summer months, the next time the season rolls around it might be a good opportunity to run a promotion to entice customers to stay. While fixing price hikes or technical issues is a bit harder, having that information will at least let companies know the magnitude of those situations, which will only help in the long run.

For this data strategy to be successful, you need a system designed to process information quickly and display it in an easy-to-understand format. Building a custom database software system will give businesses the tools they need to make the most out of customer losses and turn churn from a negative to a positive.

There are many factors that go into determining the quality of an organization's information. In addition to following best practices in regards to acquiring data, systems must be designed properly so that users have easier access to it, thus enhancing their ability to report on it and make smart business decisions.

However, many companies have failed in this area, according to a new report titled "Global Risk Management Survey, Eighth Edition: Setting a Higher Bar." The study was conducted by Deloitte and found that only 25 percent of companies feel they have either extremely or very effective solutions in place to process information.

This is an alarming number in industries such as finance, where the ability to manage risk is crucial. Failure to properly assess data and determine any risks can lead to serious problems, as this was one factor that ultimately led to the financial crisis of 2008. To properly report data and make smart business decisions, information must be processed in a system that can give companies the best view of their information.

FileMaker development is an ideal solution in this case because it can give companies the ability build flexible and scalable solutions to manage their data. As volumes of information continue to grow, it's important to have a system in place that can grow as well. This will give organizations a custom database software solution that they can use to improve the manner in which they collect, process, report on and store valuable information. This will go a long way toward helping identify key risks and managing them appropriately.