As a leader of a small or medium-sized business (SMB), you are constantly bombarded with the promise of AI. You see reports from major consulting firms, watch webinars from tech giants, and read headlines that suggest if you’re not implementing an AI strategy right now, you’re already obsolete. The pressure is immense. These visions, often […]
You’ve done everything right. After months of demos, meetings, and a significant six-figure investment, you launched a state-of-the-art business intelligence (BI) platform. The dashboards are sleek, the data is live, and the potential is limitless. But six months later, you walk past your top sales manager’s desk and see the truth: she’s making her most […]
In our previous installment, we navigated the critical transition from the “Developing” to the “Defined” stage of the SMB Data Maturity Model. We established a world where data is organized, reporting is standardized through a Business Intelligence (BI) platform, and the chaos of spreadsheet reporting has been tamed. In the Defined stage, the organization has […]
Last time in Analytics Foundations Part 1, we broke free from pure spreadsheet chaos and nudged our data environment into the Developing stage. Data exports are now landing in one place, basic quality controls catch typos early, and a pilot dashboard refreshes automatically. These are great wins, but for many SMBs, this is where things […]
You’re Not Alone, many Smart Teams Are Drowning in Spreadsheet Debt You’ve built a successful business. Your team is innovative, your operations are humming, and you’re making progress. But under the surface, something isn’t working. Each time leadership asks for a report, it’s a scramble. Your analysts are constantly reconciling numbers between different spreadsheets. Your finance […]
Getting buy-in for data projects can be tough. A couple of years ago, I was consulting with a division of a large telecommunications company. They had asked me to evaluate their current data management processes and make recommendations. During one of our conversations, when data governance came up, the IT team told me they had […]
For many growing SMBs, the desire to be data-driven is there, but the execution is anything but. You know the KPIs that matter. You’ve imagined what good reporting could look like. And maybe you’ve even tried a few dashboards or tools that promised to solve the problem. But here’s the truth: many small and midsize businesses […]