Use Data to Make Better Business Decisions

3 Ways to Use Data for Better Business Decision-Making

Businesses today have access to more data than ever before, which you can use to measure metrics, track trends, and gain insight into just about every aspect of your customers, products, and services.

Although gut instincts still come into play some of the time, the availability of so much data—and advanced software to calculate key performance indicators (KPIs) and issue real-time reports—makes it imperative for businesses to use data to inform their key decisions.

Following are three ways you can use data to make better, faster business decisions.

1. Use data to optimize pricing

One of the basic questions for businesses is whether they have priced their products or services too low or too high. Just because items are selling doesn’t mean the business is profitable, or that a different price might not lead to better sales and margins.

To optimize pricing, you first need up-to-date data on all costs related to each product or service. An item that is selling fast, generating a high level of revenue, may also be expensive to produce, resulting in low profits. Raising the price to reflect those higher costs might be necessary—and any price change can be closely monitored to see how it affects sales.

2. Manage your margins

Total revenue is not a true indicator of business success. What matters more are profit margins, including both contribution and gross profit margins.

Contribution margins are revenue minus variable costs. Gross profit margins are revenue minus the costs of goods sold. By following both, you can better understand what your profits are and where your break-even point is for every product and service you sell. Using those metrics, you can then look for opportunities to increase your margins—which could mean scaling back low-margin products, promoting the sale of high-margin goods, or other steps.

3. Evaluate your revenue stream

To properly evaluate your revenue stream, it is important to run individualized profit and loss statements on every client. Gut instinct might suggest that your oldest, biggest, or most renowned client is your best client. But when you run the numbers, you might be surprised by what you find.

By running individual reports, you can identify low-margin clients that are damaging your cash flow or limiting your growth. Spend too much time on serving those clients, and you might lose others. Then too, there might be an opportunity cost if you fail to reach new, higher-margin clients because you’re working so hard to maintain low-margin clients.

Get the insights you need

Insero & Co. is one of the premier public accounting firms in Western, Central, Upstate, and the Southern Tier of New York. Contact us to learn about our outsource accounting services, audit services, employee benefit plan audits, and how we can help your business use data and the latest accounting software to make more informed decisions.