It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but how would you know? You’re scrambling to get your year-end reporting tasks done. Is the lack of automated reporting keeping you tied to your desk? Are you afraid if you’re not there, key data collection and related operational decisions will just not happen? It’s great to be needed, but if you’re the single point of success for your business, you’re also the single point of failure. If data drives business, you don’t want it hiding on static spreadsheets, or worse, in that pile under your desk waiting for you to “get to it.” No one (not even you) should be indispensable or permanently plugged into the operational framework. You’re human after all.
Instead, wouldn’t you rather be planning a week-long cruise or an escape to a destination far from to-do lists or looming reporting deadlines? Maybe it’s time for the comprehensive database development your company has been putting off and finally implementing those long-deferred reporting processes, so when you’re off the grid, your business isn’t.
We understand. It’s only natural to focus on deadlines such as year-end reporting requirements, or as we like to say, “the tyranny of the urgent.” The unfortunate downside is that, while you invest precious blood, sweat, and tears, you can miss vital day-to-day monitoring information that can spell the difference between meeting and missing your goals. Take the venerable KPI (Key Performance Indicator). When you have your database structure and functions in place, you (or your employees) are able to monitor your production numbers in near-real time, alerting you to, for example, your micro-brewery’s production running behind ten cases a day in mid-December, threatening both the company’s year-end projections and fulfillment of your customer’s orders. You’ll also know exactly what you need to do to get your operations back on track. Data is handy that way.
So, if you’re not convinced, here are just some advantages of developing a responsive reporting database:
- Improved data collection and sharing. With intelligent database development, every piece of data is appropriately identified, stored, and can be accessed by multiple users and functions.
- Increased security. Multiple users plus multiple data vehicles such as spreadsheets equal exponential risk of inadvertent exposure. A centralized database provides the means to implement much more effective data privacy and security.
- Track data across functions. Decentralized data leads to siloed functions and analysis. Integrating data from across the operational framework supports the bigger picture and highlights how departments interact and impact each other.
- Better data. When your database is properly designed, inconsistencies and errors in entered data are minimized.
- Better decision making. It naturally follows that accurate, properly integrated, and accessible data leads to better and timelier operational decisions.
Maybe it’s time to make yourself (just a little) redundant by streamlining your data and reporting, so you can actually take that vacation next year. We’d be happy to talk with you and show you how. It’s what we do. To find out more about how we partner with companies like yours to develop responsive database design solutions, contact us for a conversation.
