What can data do for you? Ask Facebook!

What can data do for you? Many small companies feel like they don’t have the resources to analyze their data to gain much needed business intelligence. The general consensus is that data analysis is for the bigger companies, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Analyzing data should be a priority for companies of all sizes. It’s the most effective way to find sales trends, build more accurate forecasts, and better target your prospects.

Here’s an example of what you can do with data that’s appropriate since the NFL season just getting started. Facebook analyzed its user data to come up with an interesting map of team fan loyalty throughout each county in the United States. As discussed in the Yahoo article, the Cowboys have the biggest fan base, reaching 21 states, while Denver comes in second with 10. The only team that’s not represented in a single county is the Jets.

Now imagine if you performed this same analysis on your database. Ok, Facebook is a huge company, but any company can easily uncover areas where their products sell the most so they can concentrate their marketing efforts there. Then break that down further to determine if there are different periods in the year in which the products sell better.

Business intelligence is critical for any business. In order to help you find the golden nuggets of information hidden in your data, Third Wave offers the APP Portal, an affordable solution that pulls the information from your SQL database and securely presents the reports on the Web. You can use it to provide real-time inventory information, reports on product sales, confidential financial reports for key executives, and much more. Find out more about this solution by signing up for an upcoming demo.