Business Intelligence

So let’s jump merrily into the depths of the nightmare of every entrepreneur: IT investment. I say nightmare because it’s a field of expertise for which the vast majority of entrepreneurs have absolutely no basis for appreciation or evaluation.  There is little or no reassurance for a decision-maker faced with a 100, 200, or even $500,000 decision, which choice will likely have a major impact on productivity, thus profitability and the future of the business.

So… to help the entrepreneur in this situation, and I believe there will be more and more who need help in the years to come, because the stakes are the same and are just as important as ever: Business Process Automation, increasing productivity, mobile workforce, accessible information, increased quality of Business Intelligence, improved decision-making processes, integrity and security of company data, etc., all of course with the ultimate goal; increase Profitability and improve Customer Satisfaction.

The Problem

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Amazingly, 25 years ago, the only people who spoke of Databases (DB) were the IT folks. They were perceived within large enterprises, not just as geeks but as business gurus. They held the secret formulas, some sort of modern day sorcerers.

Over time, the variety of databases available has diversified. Databases infiltrated the universe of many different departments of businesses; be it the Sales Force with its CRM, Human Resources (HR) with a homemade Access application, the Finance department with their multitude of Excel sheets (even if strictly speaking, they’re not really databases, it must be pointed out that Excel still manages the largest amount of data stored globally), Production and Purchasing with their ERP, etc. And that’s without counting the best years of Visual FoxPro,  which has been replaced by SQL, Oracle and many others…

Since that time, we have bandied about the term across levels of business, for example: “I think we have that into our Database”

Good evening, tonight on Discovery: The Adventures of Databases…

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It seems that everyone has been in CRM mode since the beginnnig of the New Millennium; CRM 1.0, CRM 2.0, Social CRM, CRM-in-the-Cloud, etc., it’s the Buzz word of the moment. Surprisingly, we forget that the 90’s was the Golden Age of Database; at the time every business invested heavily in a Database. Who doesn’t recall VisualFoxPro. But that was another time…

The fact is that it’s all well and good to put into place a sophisticated CRM with advanced management functions, with or without plug-ins for Social Media; it will never compensate for the deficiencies or the absence of a Database that properly reflects the reality of your business situation. Equally, you are no further ahead if your CRM system database needs to interface with other IT systems used to run your business.

When it comes to choosing between a CRM and a Database, one must evaluate needs that vary depending on the size, industry sector, and above all the size of the Sales Force/ Customer Service and customer base of your company.

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