Report Shows Analytics Increasingly Important For Midmarket Business
The use of analytics will define the successful midmarket business of the next decade, just as it will define the successful larger organization in this information age.
The past decade has seen rapid change in the business climates with an explosion of global competition and economic uncertainty. Despite this, many midmarket companies have thrived by using their size and agility as a competitive advantage. Certainly they have fewer resources at their disposal than large corporations who have the capital to invest large sums in IT. However, small yachts can turn and adjust their course much quicker than large cruise ships. The same came be said for midmarket companies.
The most successful organizations are ones that can react the quickest to (or even proactively anticipate) changes in the market place. Midmarket companies can take advantage of their smaller size by being more agile and quicker to change, or even reinvent themselves, to respond to the market.
Most organizations, regardless of size, struggle with how to best utilize and manage their important asset of data. However, a midmarket company can turn their data challenges into assets by matching the right technology and sidestep many of the information technology growing pains other companies have faced in years past. This white paper will discuss these challenges and suggest some strategies and solutions to turn midmarket data into a working asset.
Listen To The Market And Adapt
Analytics can be the midmarket company’s ear to anticipate changes and shifts in the market, and because of their smaller size, react much quicker than larger competitors. For example, analytics can be a tool to understand consumer behavior. Consumer data in the form of profiles, surveys, preferences, activities, spending habits, and so forth can be used to predict a reaction to a new product or service. Midmarket companies can also use predictive scoring to rank high-value customers or identify those with a propensity to forgo its products and service for those of a competitor.
Reduce Business Uncertainty and Gain More Control
In the fields of science and mathematics, gathering more data, repeating measurements and analyzing patterns for consistency reduces uncertainty. In business, gathering more data and analyzing it for patterns also reduces uncertainty. With less uncertainty, business leaders have more control—even in complex environments. Analytics gives insights about which buttons to push and knobs to turn to better control the environment. In this way, analytics are proactive, while conventional reporting is reactive.
IBM Offers a Powerful Appliance Option for the Midmarket
To meet the data and analytics needs of the midmarket, IBM has the PureData System for Analytics mini appliance, a small but powerful data warehouse solution.
To address the needs of the midmarket with a proven appliance model, PureData System for Analytics offers a simple but powerful option. The system is designed specifically to handle complex analytic workloads on terabyte data volumes orders-of-magnitudes faster than custom built traditional systems.
IBM’s PureData solution gives midmarket companies a strong alternative over a complex data warehouse, data mart and analytic environment. It also meets the selection criteria of scalability, power, manageability, extensibility, interoperability, manageable long-term TCO, flexibility, and robust features and functions to support almost any possible midmarket data and analytic need.