Are you making full use of your business data? When advising business owners on how to understand their metrics, my first question always is – where does this metric sit in your POS/CRM/sales system?
Sadly, I often receive responses such as ‘we use spreadsheets to clean the data’ or ‘the data in my system contains old info that we haven’t closed off.’
This approach, albeit common, has a major flaw – neglecting the importance of maintaining a clean, accurate source data system. Rubbish in – rubbish out.
But why should we not continue to rely on spreadsheets? If we humans were really infallible, why have computers become such a crucial part of our everyday life? And why is automation the go-to solution for enhancing efficiency? As we know we are emotional, subjective and, well, human.
The first step to ensuring our bias and human elements are managed starts with establishing firm ground rules for your source system and data within it, and consistently reconciling this data across your team, ensures that everyone is on the same page. This is fundamental to achieving synergistic and efficient operations.
Once this process is in place, data can be extracted, manipulated, graphed, and tabled, providing an undeniable ‘truth north’. For instance, ‘total sales were $1,056,752 last month, but after consolidation for this region, we achieved a growth of $254,947’.
What should you do if you’re dealing with unreconciled data? Simply put, start tidying it up. Recently, I helped a client who had over $8 million in outstanding tenders from the past two years that had never been closed off. After an intensive week of cleanup and team focus, we discovered their actual results, which we then shared across the entire organisation via a common sales system.
This newfound clarity transformed into powerful strategic insight. For the first time in five years, they’re on track to meet their profit targets sustainably.
The takeaway? Reconciling your data isn’t an insurmountable task. It’s essential for effective business management and strategy.
So don’t put it off – start your data reconciliation today!
