Remember the days when business analytics and reports were typed on a manual typewriter or penciled in on a paper spreadsheet? You may remember how a business tracked income and expenses in those days.
Today taking a gander at a company’s cash flow, equity and sales data no longer involves laying out a paper spreadsheet. (Remember those days of pencil shavings and eraser leavings?) We now have computational power to such a degree that ancient peoples would have considered it nothing less than a gift from the gods!
But how many businesses actually apply that computational power in a way that reveals the underlying mysteries of why sales took an unexpected slump? Or, how many entrepreneurs expended an effort to determine why the firm got a nice bump in revenue in a particular month?
Unlocking those mysteries does two things: It helps businesses focus on productive streams of revenue and prune back those unproductive activities that sap profits. It’s harder to do than it would appear at first glance, because of the oddities of the human mind. We don’t have a good handle on what is actually going on unless we do the analytics. People tend to remember the crisis and forget the good things that happen. Their perspective is skewed when they view the world from their own set of peepers.
That’s something to keep in mind as you grow your business.