Data Management and Reporting

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Data in today's business world is one of the most under-used resources businesses have available to them.

 

All businesses have it - but few are making the most of it. And the amount of data is increasing.

 

Depending on what you read, something like 90% of the world's data has been created in the past two years. And this exponential growth is only getting bigger. 

 

A lot of businesses take the passive approach to data - waiting for solutions to become so obvious and compelling they finally make the change.

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They might make the occasional systems upgrade and get some additional functionality, but these changes usually only happen every 5 to 10 years at best.

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This progress may seem OK, but your competition has probably made the same changes.

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Competitive advantage in business is achieved by doing something different - and being pro-active in this area can establish that advantage.

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Chances are your existing systems already capture important data that you haven't used. Production systems, finance systems, time & attendance systems, website traffic, social media - the list goes on.

 

The reasons for this are common.

 

How do you know what data you have?

 

Where is it?

 

How do you get at it?

 

What do you do with it once you have it?

 

Another common reason is that data lives in separate systems.

 

Think Payroll systems versus Operations systems for example.

 

It's not difficult to align your employee hours with your production data to see what productivity patterns are occurring. 

 

This is actually one of the biggest opportunities - combining data from different systems to get real, game-changing insights.  

 

At OPS Advisory, we can help you take these first steps towards being a data-driven business.

 

In a lot of cases small but valuable improvements can be made without major investment. We can review your data and help identify what you can access and how it can be used to drive your business decisions. 

 

We utilise readily available software packages, and our analytical expertise, to extract your data and transform it into valuable information. 

 

We also identify process improvement opportunities such as automating manual data input from one system to another.

 

This is low-hanging fruit that needs to be picked. 

 

Solutions you can embed in your business.

 

Contact us now to arrange a 'Data Discovery' for your business data.

 

Through this process we will:

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• identify how you capture your data and recommend suitable solutions to automate it

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• review the type of data your business captures and recommend how it can be used to improve decision-making

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• recommend new ways to capture data to improve your decision-making or customer service

 

This Data Discovery process costs $495 - we will come into your business and spend a day reviewing your systems and processes and deliver a report of recommendations.

 

After the process we will provide a quote to implement the recommendations we can help you with, and the $495 can be used as a credit against this additional work.

 

Or you might decide someone else can help you implement them, which is fine.

 

Our focus is on smaller, incremental improvements - not major transformational change (i.e big $ projects).

 

If there is nothing we can do for you, then there is no charge.

 

Below are industry-specific examples of how businesses can leverage data they probably capture in their systems already:

 

Retail:

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• comparing transaction data to employee hours to better understand service levels and productivity

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• analysing transaction data to see how sales vary on certain days, weeks, months and with other variables such as weather, to improve your ability to predict sales

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• analysing transaction data to better understand customers' purchase behavior - basket size, which products are bought with other products, what products are the foot-traffic drivers, repeat customers etc.

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• comparing sales and gross profit data to inventory levels to determine which products generate the best Return on Investment (ROI) in terms of cash tied up in inventory - not just profit

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• analysing product cost and supplier information to allow you to better prepare for cost negotiations

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• analysing promotional campaigns to understand whether the increase in sales has offset the investment in price

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• analysing marketing campaigns to understand the impact on transactions and sales volume and determine the profitability of the campaigns

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Manufacturing:

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• aligning consumption of raw-material and other inputs with production data to understand consumption-efficiency, delivering more accurate costing and pricing

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• for bulk customers, aggregating their product costs, pricing, accounts receivable history and average inventory balances to get a true ROI view by customer

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• analysing production decisions where inputs are limited, ensuring production is directed to the highest-margin customer

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• detailed review of cost drivers, such as energy, and aligning consumption with production, to understand which products consume more, allowing for more accurate costing and pricing

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• margin analysis by product and/or customer to ensure gross margins are accurate and transparent

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Click on the Contact Us button below if you would like to arrange a 'Data Discovery' at your business.