Article by SmartCompany: The Great Data Divide
How SMEs with accurate data insights are surviving the inflationary cycle
Key points
- Real-time data is more accessible to small and medium businesses than ever before
- It’s allowing a generation of business owners who’ve had to rely on experience and gut feel to transform their businesses into data-driven operations and grow their revenues and margins in the face of difficult economic headwinds
Regardless of industry, businesses can be divided into haves and have nots by the accuracy and recency of their data. For those running on gut feel, or how they’ve always done it, a perilous combination of economic drivers could push them to the wall.
With every news story headline, the outlook seems to get more challenging for SMEs. With supply chains stretched, prices rising and skilled employees impossible to find, there are pressures across every single facet of business.
Unfortunately, if you believe the forecasts — it’s likely to stay that way for a while yet. It seems that business owners are confronted with a never-ending set of challenges, and to make money in the current climate, good data, far more than good luck, is required.
In the current environment, and for a long while into the future, the divide between those who have data and those who don’t, is akin to a forecast about who will (and won’t) thrive, or even survive. While big data remains the province of large corporates and governments, real-time data is more accessible to SMEs than ever before.
This article also references the Xero Small Business Insights Report findings for July 2022.
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