“Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway.”

– By Geoffrey Moore, an American Management Consultant and Author

Data is a collected qualitative and quantitative variable study of a product or a person. In the field of business, data is primarily the facts and statistics which are collected over a certain time period during business operations.

Understanding Data and its Importance in Business

In a business, data analysis is done on the basis of the variables collected across an organization’s internal and external activities. This also includes the metrics which are suggestive of the customers’ interaction and feedback.

In any business, start-up or large scale, it is important to be well acquainted with the customers or clients. It has been noticed over the years that big data plays a vital role in small businesses owing to their agility and ability to act quickly with regard to the insights received from the data.

Here are some practical ways for small businesses to use big data for the company’s benefit-

• It is with big data that companies get a clearer insight into their customers’ requirements and expectations. Interactions and engagement with the customers to attain their feedback or to serve their product-related issues directly have become simpler. Major data sources which serve to enhance vendor-customer understanding are text analytics, browser logs of various social media platforms, in-house data as well as public data.
• Trend analysis and understanding of the buyers’ behavior have become possible with real-time data availability.
• Data has the power to avail the businesses with financial data as well as product popularity in the market owing to the transparency of the social media channels.
• The bigger is the data more shall be the improvements and generated efficiency. This further improvises the operations.
• It helps the business make practical, quicker, and smarter decisions.
• Gaining a competitive advantage over other parallel organizations becomes possible with big data analysis.
• The recruitment and hiring process has become easier with access to big data for assessing the right candidate.

What Should a Small Business Owner or Entrepreneur Know About Data?

Leveraging data is the current mantra to be able to compete in the contemporary industrial rat race. Many fields of businesses are being transformed with big data today. Statistics suggest that nearly 51% of small business owners believe in big data analysis. Even though many entrepreneurs also believe that while running a new business, data analytics can become cumbersome. A small business owner should know the sources from where the information for data analysis can be fetched:

• Sales receipts
• Website analytics
• Social media analytics
• Marketing reports from emails

It is important to understand the basic functions of the tools or software which are helpful in data study. Some tools used in data analytics are:

• R Programming
• Tableau Public
• SAS
• Apache Spark
• Excel
• Rapid Miner
• KNIME
• Watson Analytics

Apart from data analytics, a business owner must also know the basics of data retrieval or data back-up. Losing data is not an uncommon scenario with the presence of malware, viruses, hard drive damage, power outages, software corruption, and many such likely causes. Following data back-up and recovery knowhows should be known to an owner to efficiently tackle the situation:

• Cloud-based backups – These cost-effective solutions are the most commonly used tools for data recovery.
• Hardware backups – In this, ideally hard drives can be used for an easy data backup. A blend of hardware and cloud-based backups are recommended for businesses though.
• Software backups – It requires installation of the software on a virtual system and is often cheaper and more efficient than other backup methods.

Role of a Business Owner

A business owner’s responsibilities begin with determining the company structure and continues with establishing an identity in the market; knowing the right kind of customer service, marketing, and sales models, etc. Apart from being responsible for the growth and stability of the firm, the owner is also responsible for the direction, planning and strategy, and the daily operations of the organization.