Way back the focus used to be on collection of historical data and present it to the board for decision making. You run financial statements and present budget versus actual and the CEO uses the information to review performance right? This used to work a decade ago when historical information was good enough for decision making-in 2018 however historical information is not good enough. The advent of the digital revolution has enabled business to have access to a wide array of information. Instead of concentrating on the past, now they can use look into the future and develop business models that help businesses to accurately forecast future business events.
Banking Sector
Take for instance the banking sector where clients get ATM cards. An ATM card helps to track the amount of money a client withdraws from the ATM machine, it helps track how much a client receives in terms of deposits as well as expenditure. Information can help track the type of expenses one spends money on, when they spend and where. Your bank can even tell where you are going to be spending your money the next 12 months. Using historical data they can tell which places you visit often out of town through the use of your card to pay tollgate fees.
They already know how much you are going to be spending this Christmas and where! Welcome to the interesting world of data analytics where businesses get a competitive advantage by developing business models that tell them about the future. The days of finance experts presenting historical data are now archaic-for key decision making, decision makers want to know what the future holds. Who is going to be the next customer, how much customers are supposed to bring to the company and more importantly who are the customers.
Now we have technology and it gives us all the information we want about our clients, competitors and business performance. In the nineties we had no option but had to rely on historical data but now we have no excuse, Your bank can run your profile and tell the time you spend money, they can even predict that next week you are going to be at this place buying this or that ! However their main purpose is to use Big Data for business purposes and be able to predict your future needs of cash, loans or bank services.
Your Clicks or Edgars member card also helps the shop to know you better and be in a better position to predict your future needs and this brings efficiency to them and improves overall profitability.
Learn Big Data
If you are still relying on historical data for decision making then you are still stuck in the analogue era-you have a lot of catch up to do! If Big Data does not appear during your staff meetings or strategic meetings then you urgently need to review how you operate. There are 2 institutions in town offering Big Data workshops, get one of your team members to attend and then apply what they learnt to your business.
What is up with ZBIN?
1.SA Entrepreneurship Book Completion: We do not want to beat our own drum but we firmly believe that this is probably the best entrepreneurship book for South Africans. How to make money in Mzantsi, how to mobilise resources, skills needed and where the money is! The book includes many voices of SA entrepreneurs and is simply inspirational. It answers the simple question-how does one make money in South Africa?
2.Digital Marketing Training: Hundreds have been making inquiries about our training on digital marketing. The good thing its on and we are perfecting material that should produce the best digital marketing experts in Zim. Digital Marketing is all about sales. How much sales can one make? What is the Return on Investment ROI? Having made regional digital marketing records, we hope to produce the best class of entrepreneurs who get more than 500% return on their investment in training.
3.Online Newsletter: Our online newsletter email addresses have reached 2.000 with numbers increasing every day. We are going to be spending more time on our online newsletter which is regional in nature. Great exciting stuff to be shared with everyone who has subscribed.
So we wish you a productive week, expect the forum to be rather quiet with little posted as we get busy with a lot of inhouse stuff preparing for many trainings coming at the end of May and June.
Kwaheri
