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QUALITY DATA HELPS TELL THE STORY
In
this issue Africabiz Online's guest writer is from
BizMiner. He
demonstrates in few and precise words why one needs quality data to convince business
partners.
Entrepreneurs and small business owners need hard data to create and tell a story
- to understand the competition, identify opportunities, or to take to a bank
or investor. Valuable data is of two main types: financial analysis that
benchmarks your operations against industry peers, and statistics that
paint a picture of competitive trends in your specific line of business.
Beware
of "free" data available on the net and elsewhere. Poor quality or poorly defined
information can cost you dearly, in your planning and with your investors. By
contrast, detailed, quality data helps you identify strengths and weaknesses in
your line of business, offering insight and the chance to address troublesome
trends.
Consider these three critical issues before selecting industry
data:
1. Does the data analyze your specific
line of business? Your specific marketing area?
Irrelevant
or overly broad industry classifications diminish your analysis and your story.
While several providers offer industry financial analysis benchmarks for 300-900
major industries, BizMiner publishes balance
sheet and financial ratio profiles on over 10,000 lines of business.
Make
certain that marketing research data is specific to your market area and industry.
Many manufacturers and traded service firms can utilize national data effectively.
But if you are sell rare or used books from a storefront in Boston, national data
on bookstore trends in general won't tell you much - although it may tell investors
that you don't have the facts you need. Bizminer's marketing
plan research profiles report on trends in every state and 250 metro areas
- in over 16,000 lines of business.
By the same token, financial analysis
numbers are generally available at the national level only, due to the limited
number of firms willing to share complete industry balance sheet information.
As a result, national data is the only financial (as opposed to marketing) research
that banks will expect.
2. Is the data timely?
Quality data - good numbers developed from a large pool of
analyzed firms - takes time to develop. Financial information is available from
most firms near the beginning of each year for the prior year; Only then can data
providers begin to collect, analyze and publish reports. As a result, detailed
industry financial analysis doesn't usually appear until 9-12 months after the
end date of the analysis itself, and then has a reasonable "shelf life" of 6-9
months. Marketing research data should be more timely, but you should still expect
it to lag by 9-15 months, depending on the measure. If your data lags more than
two years (real time, not by sometimes misleading "publication dates"), it's time
to look elsewhere.
3. Does your data provide
insight that helps tell your story?
Quality statistics help
you create and tell your story. Good data creates a backbone of competitive knowledge
that lets you seize on positives and identify potential obstacles like high failure
rates, low sales growth in your market, or relatively low efficiency levels in
the local industry. Your recognition of both - and your explanation of how you
plan to overcome problems you identify - is a powerful tool to bring to a bank
or investors - or just to have in your internal planning arsenal.
Look
for hard-to-find measures that sharpen your understanding of trends in your industry:
survivor sales, sales per employee, failure rates, and concentrations of high
growth firms in your market area. These and other analytical advantages help you
understand the current picture of the line of business you are in - and where
it may be heading over the next few years.
Help yourself understand what
to expect from a small business by analyzing the experience of others in your
situation - in your line of business and in your market area. BizMiner local
and national industry analysis includes special "survivor" measures that help
you assess where successful businesses with your characteristics usually land
in three years. |
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ACT BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. MAKE USE OF BIGFIX
As you know a computer is exactly like a country in which many communities (applications)
live and perform their duties under the control of the central government (operating
system).
From time to time the central government is reshuffled (patches,
service packs) and the communities themselves rejuvenate to perform better their
tasks. The rejuvenation of said communities of applications are done through new
updates and new Dynamic Link Libraries (DLL) and also patches.
Exactly
as in human communities conflicts may arise. New elements introduced either by
the operating system reshuffling or from intruders (viruses, Trojan horses, spywares.
Etc.,) may perturb existing harmony of communities. Sometimes, the rejuvenation
of a specific community (application) may interfere with existing DLL of another
community. Got the picture?
In brief your computer is a living being
that needs to be under the scrutiny of a doctor who have the ability to diagnose
diseases and harmful perturbation long in advance to avoid a damaging and definitive
breakdown.
Who wants to loose hard work or be in trouble in advance
of a decisive strategic meeting? Do you? Certainly not. So a doctor is at your
disposal to remove any apprehension: BigFix.
BigFix helps to prevent computer
problems by finding and alerting you to patches, security fixes, and the like
before any problems arise. BigFix icon will reside in your system tray to automatically
gather information about the latest bugs, security alerts, and updates from BigFix
sites around the Internet. A flashing icon lets you know if any of these found
fixes apply to your system.
BigFix is a must have for any one who care
about his computer health. Visit
MajorGeek website and make search for BigFix and get it. It is free and invaluable.
Visiting MajorGeek site is the quickest way to download the application. If you
prefer the developer site click
here |
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