Business data has existed for ages. But mostly it just sat hopelessly trapped in handwritten ledgers, filing cabinets, and floppy disks, a precious resource untapped. Software from past decades helped only so much. Many such applications could work only with individual databases and were often costly and unwieldy to boot. Until very recently, such data could be used only by the giants.
Now, thanks to falling tech costs and new tools that display complex databases in ways even technophobes could love, smaller companies can unlock many more secrets from data. Your company’s databases can be cross-referenced with the expanding galaxy of information drawn not just from the likes of social networks, government databases, and usage patterns on mobile devices, but also from increasingly specialized information sources such as digitized transcripts of call-center interactions and sensors sending updates from various steps within a supply chain, and do so affordably.
Read More At Inc.
