Big Data, Small Data and Everything in Between

Plain and simple, businesses create a lot of data each and every day.  There is data from internal operations, customer transactions, and with social media or other online interactions.  As you can imagine, there is a lot of data that can be collected and translated into meaningful, actionable information that you can use to drive growth.  However, therein lies the challenge – capturing and analyzing the right data, similar to looking for the needle in the haystack. 

Many businesses have disparate, specialty software solutions or legacy systems that are no longer aligned with business operations or strategic goals.  Having separate silos of data, or haystacks as in our example, may be great for knowing what’s in each individual part of your business, but it’s a limited view of your entire enterprise.  Separating departmental data, like inventory control or supply chain from customer sales, makes it difficult to find trends or observe relationships between one part of your business and another.  Knowing what customers are buying, for example, can be beneficial to stocking up on the right inventory while letting unpopular products diminish off the shelves.

You can get more out of your big data by managing it from a single, integrated business management solution.  One business management solution is much easier to use than multiple solutions, as well as more affordable.  Data is entered once instead of several times in multiple software programs, and then shared between departments.  Your sales team can update customer orders, for example, and procurement can check to see what inventory is in house and what needs to get ordered.  Many of today’s more powerful solutions, such as the Microsoft Dynamics® ERP suite of solutions, also offer built-in business intelligence.  You don’t have to collect reports from each of your departments, then spend days pouring over data to figure out what is going on.  True business intelligence functionality will enable you to monitor the most important metrics such as gross sales or sales by region, in real time from the convenience of your computer, or in some cases, your tablet or smartphone.

You can use today’s innovative business management solutions to collect your business data and leverage the insight to your competitive advantage.  Contact the experts at BlueHorseShoe for guidance on harnessing your business data and turning it into actionable insight that you can use to drive growth.

By BlueHorseShoe, a Microsoft Partner with offices in Indiana, Ohio, and Colorado

About Blue Horseshoe Solutions

Blue Horseshoe is a privately held solution services firm with offices in Carmel, Indiana, Columbus, Ohio and Denver, Colorado.  Blue Horseshoe delivers robust ERP, WMS, TMS, and Mobile  solutions for Fortune 500 and mid-market businesses throughout the world. Blue Horseshoe has strategically developed a specialized focus on the Distribution, Warehousing and Supply Chain Industry through the Microsoft technology platform.

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