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Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) could enhance their survivability by embracing data analytics, CEO of UrBizEdge Limited, Michael Olafusi has told IT Edge News in Lagos.
Business sustainability hinges on access to mission-critical information and ability of business owners notably SMEs to interpret challenges, new opportunities, Olafusi, a data analyst said.
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“SME owners should learn to embrace and practice data analysis, if they want to grow, they will definitely need to take data analysis serious. Cash and finance is the blood in any company, if the finance dries up, the company falls off. Hence, there is need to make data analysis active and running in the company for proper management and structure. Most startup-companies understand this and they put it in place right from day one,” he said.
Data analysis allows for inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informed conclusions, able to support right decision-making.
The CEO of a registered Microsoft Excel consulting and enterprise solutions firm in Nigeria explained that data management and forecasting affect businesses in terms of ability to put the right, growth strategies in place.
“Some SME owners underestimate data analysis, they see it as an unnecessary cost or thing, while some will tell you that they know what they are doing and they don’t need somebody to tell them how much they are making. If you want to grow, you definitely need to take data analysis seriously, and if you just want to have control over everything then those ones remain as one-man businesses, they never have a proper structure.”
According to one report, the industry that uses data analytics the most in Nigeria is the finance industry. But other industries are rapidly leveraging the skills of data analysts to optimise service delivery and improve corporate profits. They include business intelligence, transportation, entertainment, healthcare, retail, and telecommunications.
