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If there's one things banks have going for them, their access to information is unparalleled. Financial organizations process an almost infinite amount of data on a daily basis, which provides them with useful insights that they can later use to improve customer service, boost operational efficiency and identify risk, among many other applications. The problem is many banks are struggling to actually use their information correctly.

Lawrence Buettner of Wausau Financial Systems wrote a recent article for Bank Tech detailing his travels around the country. He visited a number of banks and other financial companies to talk about innovation and other tech-related topics with some of the nation's most prominent financial professionals. Typically, these conversations turned to data. More accurately, they spoke of their respective bank's mismanagement of its own information.

"We lost a major house account that was with the bank for decades because we could not meet their data needs to better manage their receivables," one banker told Buettner.

While this is clearly an unfortunate scenario, the worst part is that it's entirely avoidable. By implementing the right solutions, banks—or any company for that matter—can harness the power of their information and get the most out of it. Data should help an organization grow, not prevent it from succeeding.

Building a custom database software system will allow companies to effectively collect, process and monitor their information. Companies like banks that handle an enormous volume of data will be able to scale their systems and eliminate the risk of mismanaging their information.

The magic wand question has fueled numerous conversations about business products and services and has served as an effective strategy for sales professionals for a number of years. Essentially, when a business is considering the procurement of a new tool or service to help the company, the individual tasked with selling that product asks "If you had a magic wand, what would you change about your organization?" 

This question is effective in the sales process because there is always an answer. Procurement specialists wouldn't be evaluating new products or services if there wasn't some area of the company they thought needed improvement. The key is finding out exactly what that area is. Often, buyers have needs they feel are unattainable, but if they allow their imaginations to run wild while answering the magic wand question, their providers can get a better idea of what exactly they want to do and this knowledge will help them get closer to providing that solution.

Today, the magic wand question is proving to be even more successful because big data is helping companies do things that were initially impossible prior to the advent of powerful information management systems. An article in Business 2 Community recently addressed this when discussing the popularity of real time data management. Emma Capron, the article's author, set out to ask why real-time big data management has been successful at so many organizations and making the impossible achievable was one of the chief examples.

"Real time data is being applied in a variety of scenarios to allow organizations to be proactive rather than reactive," Capron wrote. "Use cases already include fraud detection, customer sentiment analysis, real-time stock inventory control, scale-out transactions, and real-time bus and train tracking. Many of these would be impossible without a real-time data management (RTDM) framework in place."

Before developing a custom database software system to manage information management, ask yourself the magic wand question. If you could do whatever you wanted at your company, what would it be? What's the one area you wish could be improved, no matter how unrealistic it may seem? Chances are, data will help you get where you want to be. Let FileMaker Pro serve as your magic wand.

Most startups understand the importance of data, particularly in the digital age where everything can be processed and stored in a virtual environment, but understanding exactly what data to collect is a different matter. When companies are first starting out, they have to ensure that whatever information they collect can be leveraged to help the business grow. 

Figuring this out can be difficult, so an article in Mashable set out to answer the question. Dani Fankhauser, the article's author, gave examples of various startups and examined how they were able to use data collection strategies to fuel their early growth. One case study was Fligoo, a gift recommendation app, and its co-founder Juan Cruz. The entrepreneur shared what worked for his company and ultimately came up with one universal principle every new company should follow. 

"All startups should be collecting data generated by their own product," he said. "Knowing what actions users do frequently, or not at all, allows a startup to improve the experience every day."

In the case of gift recommendation application, this would include the number of times users log on each day, what links they click in the app and any other action they take once it's open. This principle can be applied at virtually any company and those that understand how to collect and use data will be able to both improve that specific item and create more refined products going forward.

Of course, the only way this information can really help is if it is processed in a way that creates compelling, real-time reports. A custom database software system will fulfill this need at any startup.

Succeeding in a competitive market isn’t easy, particularly for small startups that have to go against larger and more established organizations. However, that didn’t stop Golden Road Brewing. The Los Angeles-based craft brewery has thrived because of its custom database software system.

Co-founder Meg Gill spoke with Inc. Magazine about her vision, her challenges and what helped her succeed in a tough industry. While hard work and resolve played a substantial role in her success, it was her understanding of how to manage information that really fueled her ability to compete in her market. She soon realized that data could improve virtually every aspect of her business, including the freshness of her beer, something she explained was crucial to her company.

“You can’t get to volume, and then to profitability, without fresh beer,” she said. “That’s something we live by. Even though our first year was incredibly successful, we learned that without comprehensive tracking and reporting systems for distribution and retail, we couldn’t control whether our beer was fresh.”

An article featured in Forbes picked up Gill’s story and suggested many small organizations don’t understand the power of quality data, which is why success in this space is never easy.

“Small and medium businesses (SMBs) face many challenges when it comes to basic infrastructure. Many times, spreadsheets are the only answer for running the business (inventory management, production schedules or sales process). As a result, manual reports proliferate and they are tough to manage and consolidate,” the article said.

Understanding the importance of not only digital information, but the ability to process it efficiently will go a long way toward helping any small company compete in its industry, regardless of what it is. Gill figured out early on that her database system, which she manages in the cloud, will help ensure the freshness of her beer, which keeps her product at the level of quality it needs to help her business grow. If her information was inaccurate and the freshness of her beer was compromised, it could have damaged her entire operation.

FileMaker development can allow companies to build a system that tracks data that’s important to them and store it in a similar cloud environment. This will allow businesses to grow as their solution scales up with their success.

All the data in the world may not amount to much of companies fail to make the most of their information.

When users collect and process data, they have to be able to think about it and do so quickly. Any hesitation to act based on the contents of an organization’s data could cause an organization to fall behind in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

This act is called analysis-paralysis, and was recently listed in a Bloomberg article as a bad habit data managers must break. Thomas Redman, the article’s author, explained the ramifications of this indecisiveness.

“Analysis-paralysis plagues people and companies that don’t deal well with uncertainty,” he wrote. “They can fall into the trap of seeking ‘just one more bit of confirmation’ before deciding. They delay, delay, delay, seeking to make the perfect decision. They don’t realize that not making a decision is a decision in itself and can have consequences. Delay too long and the competitor may introduce that new product line first, a great candidate may go elsewhere and an investor may withdraw its offer.”

While quick decision-making certainly requires effort from the individual tasked with analyzing the data, the process can be improved with the help of custom database software. Having the ability to collect, process, store and report on information in real time will alleviate the risk of waiting too long to make data-based decisions. This can improve the overall state of an organization by allowing it to stay ahead of its competition, rather than falling behind.

In a perfect world, customer retention would never be an issue. We would acquire new business, the relationship between ourselves and our customers would be perfect and they would stay with us forever. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and, sometimes, people leave us. While it’s a difficult topic to think about, it’s not necessarily devastating. An incident in this vein can actually be a positive. It all depends on what we make of it.

The most successful organizations don’t go about business assuming they will never lose a customer under any circumstances. Instead, they have systems and strategies in place to capitalize on a particular situation by obtaining all relevant information pertaining to the event and using it to improve the overall company. Ultimately, by keeping an eye on the churn rate, companies can make efforts to keep it down.

A recent article in Inc. Magazine listed five metrics every marketer should pay attention to. Churn was included because of all the important bits of information that can be processed whenever a customer leaves.

“Nobody likes to talk about churn because we all want to believe that no one would leave us and move on, but it happens and it’s an incredibly powerful metric,” wrote Janine Popick, the article’s author. “If you measure it consistently and over time, you will see any unusual spikes or valleys. And you can track those back to things that may have happened.”

Suppose your customers leave primarily during the summer, or what if churn occurs consistently after prices go up, or whenever your communication systems fail (like your website going down.) This information can be collected, processed and used to adjust certain aspects of operations accordingly. For example, if it’s determined that the majority of customers who leave do so during the summer months, the next time the season rolls around it might be a good opportunity to run a promotion to entice customers to stay. While fixing price hikes or technical issues is a bit harder, having that information will at least let companies know the magnitude of those situations, which will only help in the long run.

For this data strategy to be successful, you need a system designed to process information quickly and display it in an easy-to-understand format. Building a custom database software system will give businesses the tools they need to make the most out of customer losses and turn churn from a negative to a positive.

Revenue management is an important component of any organization, particularly in industries that have been directly impacted by economic uncertainty. In these instances, the ability to properly view and analyze data to determine potential revenue has become increasingly vital.

Ankur Randev is the vice president of revenue and distribution at Highgate Hotels. Working in the hospitality industry, he understands that unforeseen factors like weather can have a drastic impact on revenue, but he is optimistic about the future of his organization and position because he knows that big data will play a much larger role going forward. One of the key advantages of using data to determine revenue is that there are more channels to view information, thus giving professionals like himself more data to work with.

However, speaking with the online publication Hospitality Net, Randev warned businesses to ensure they are using high-quality data. More importantly, he said they should learn to capitalize on the information they do have.

“The biggest hurdle is that businesses do not fully understand the value of customer data,” he said. “While a lot of organizations have embarked on building customer databases, it’s important that the quality of that data is constantly refined. From the top down, all departments must embrace the fact and understand that every guest interaction is an opportunity to build on that database.”

To fulfill this need, companies can build a custom database software system that can give users a fully detailed view of customer behavior and any other factor that could potentially impact revenue.

The ability to process information and store it in a virtual environment is certainly a benefit to any company that relies heavily on its data. However, as volumes continue to grow, the challenges pertaining to its storage and impact on the business network must be considered.

The issue of storage is being alleviated with cloud computing. For example, if a company initiated a FileMaker development project to build a database, it could then host that system in the cloud. The virtual nature of this storage system makes it easier for businesses to implement additional space, as they don’t have to concern themselves with physical servers. However, even if a company has a strong cloud storage solution, it must be able to properly maintain the amount of data managed in the cloud.

Bandwidth becomes a concern when large quantities of information are being processed through the network. If an organization is managing its data in a cloud system, it must have enough bandwidth to ensure information can transfer quickly without compromising other areas of the business.

In today’s offices, we are more connected than ever before. In addition to traditional desktops, many organizations issue smartphones or tablets to their employees. Others manage a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) strategy that allows workers to bring their own gadgets to the office for work. With so many machines being connected to the network, data is flowing constantly, which could put a strain on network strength if it is not properly managed.

The key is data efficiency. Companies need to get the most out of the bandwidth they have, which means they cannot afford to run into issues such as data duplication. If the organization is processing more information than it needs to, it is taking up more bandwidth than necessary. Mitigating this issue is crucial. A system must be in place that properly manages information in the most efficient way possible.

FileMaker development can help with this need as well, as this process can be used to build a custom database software system. This program can be constructed to fit with an organization’s specific data needs, which will go a long way toward ensuring that information flows quickly without slowing down any other processes.

In the era of big data, marketers have come to learn one thing: information can help companies enhance their marketing efforts. This is a valid point and this blog has discussed this topic in the past, but one thing marketers need to understand is the number of challenges that can accompany a big data strategy.

Building larger volumes of data can ultimately help marketers gather the information they need to reach a more responsive audience with a more targeted message, but just having the information without any system in place to analyze it and provide context won't offer much assistance. In fact, when marketers have more information to sift through to find what they are looking for, they will likely find it more difficult to effectively do their jobs.

A recent survey adds credence to this thought, determining if marketers aren't aware of big data challenges and don't prepare for them accordingly, they could find themselves trapped under mountains of information. The Teradata Data Driven Marketing Survey 2013 states that marketers are increasing their reliance on data, although many of them are still trying to determine the best possible way to manage their information. 

According to the results, the most popular way for marketers to deal with big data challenges is to implement new technology used to increase analytics and build efficiency into information processing operations. The study projects a 60 percent increase in analytics spending over the next three years. In fact, Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are starting to take over Chief Information Officers (CIOs) as the top executives when it comes to relying on technology to process information. The study suggests CMOs will outspend CIOs on technology by 2017.

While it's crucial for marketing departments to understand the importance of technology and how it can help alleviate big data challenges, implementing a new system for the sake of doing so may not be the best solution. Companies need the right technology to process their information. One that can scale as data volumes continue to grow is ideal, considering the fact we don't know how massive big data will get in the coming years.

FileMaker development allows companies to build custom database software systems designed to collect, process and store information. Marketers can meet the challenges of big data if they build the right system to fit their needs, which will ultimately improve the company's overall marketing efforts. 

While technology advancements have helped launch new communication methods such as social media and SMS communication, email remains one of the most effective ways for companies to interact with their customers. Email marketing is still a valuable business practice, mainly because of its ability to adapt to new processes.

For example, while we have moved from traditional PCs to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets as our primary computer, businesses have managed to adjust email messages so they can be optimized for smaller screen displays. Today, people all over the globe prefer to check email on their mobile gadgets instead of a desktop or laptop computer, and those tasked with sending emails have capitalized on this fact. 

Additionally, big data has become a major component of modern email marketing campaigns. Businesses are able to use the information they collect from other customer interactions and utilize it to send higher quality and more focused emails to a more eager buying group. Using big data can make email marketing campaigns that much stronger.

The online publication Marketing Profs offered a seminar to visitors on the use of big data in email marketing initiatives, and in its introduction article the site offered some keen insights regarding the practice. 

"Every day brings another chance to deliver timely, memorable experiences for potential buyers," the article said. "Whether they're long-time customers or fresh new prospects, our job as marketers is to optimize their experience with our brand so that they'll choose our products [and come back for more]. But optimizing those experiences takes more than guess work; to achieve email marketing success, we must rely on the data our marketing programs generate every day."

To successfully use data to fuel an email marketing campaign, it's important for companies to collect that information in a system that can both integrate with its outreach applications while also presenting data in an easy-to-understand format. A custom database software system will have to enable the marketer to make smart decisions based on its data without having to slow their processes by waiting for information to update or spending a prolonged period of time searching for it.

FileMaker development can allow businesses to create powerful systems that can assist with any email marketing strategy.