Data is one of the most important things that your business can possess. It will tell you if your are making the most profitable choice for your company or whether you may want to think about adjusting how you complete a job for a client. What kind of data can be useful when creating and growing a profitable enterprise?
Know Where Your Customers Are
Let’s say that you want to start a grout cleaning business in your neighborhood. While there very well be a market for that, you don’t know unless you have the information that supports your hypothesis. For instance, you will want to know how many homes or housing developments are located in your area.
Next, you will want to know how many people buy compared to how many people rent in a given area. This is important because renters may not be as worried about the condition of their grout compared to owners. Those who own a rental property may be more concerned with profit over nonessential cleaning tasks, which could take them out of the picture as potential clients.
Finally, you will need to know how much disposable income people have in a specific area to make sure that they would want to pay for such a service. Typically, a person is most worried about paying the mortgage, buying food and then paying for upgrades or cosmetic enhancements to their property.
Big Data Helps You Complete a Job at a Lower Cost
Instead of cleaning grout, let’s say that you were the owner of a kitchen cabinet refinishing company. You know that there are plenty of homeowners in your area who want the services that you sell and can afford your prices. While that is great to know, you can use data to further enhance profits and margin by letting it show you what type of materials to use during a given project.
For instance, you may decide that it’s cheaper to simply sand and paint existing cabinets instead of buying new ones. You may also see that buying existing units is cheaper than buying custom units. As long as the customer is OK with one or both of those ideas, you have increased your profits without offering substandard service to the customer.
Anticipate Lulls and Spikes in Demand
With big data, you can anticipate shifts in the way that your customers think or in the items that they desire. In some cases, your target market may no longer want what your have for sale because of a recession or because they don’t need to upgrade or update an existing product that they have.
However, there is a chance that your customer base may shift to those who haven’t had the time or money to remodel their kitchen or do interior work on their home in general. If you have the information about your potential market at your fingertips, you can start to penetrate those potential new markets before anyone else even realizes that there is one to court.
In really bad economic times, you may be able to use your data to identify new products or services that your customers may want or need. This can help you get through the tough times until the economy picks back up and you can start to focus again on your core offerings.
Big data is something that no business should ignore or underestimate. When used correctly, it can help to grow your company or even keep it from closing when times get tougher. Therefore, you should start collecting such data either on your own or through a third-party that may collect and share it with businesses such as yours.