There’s no doubt software written especially for your business can help you to complete tasks and achieve business objectives faster than having to ‘make do’ with an off the shelf solution, whether it’s a web portal designed for your needs, a web or mobile app, software specially written for stock control or other business activity.
A major component of a software set up is the database – or more often multiple databases. Commissioning a bespoke database development project from an experienced software professional to meet your particular business needs is an invaluable asset to benefit both your day-to-day operations and data analytics.
The Important Roles Of Databases
Your business likely uses databases in at least a simple form including customer lists that likely contain basic functionality such as being able to send customised mailings and record purchasing history. More complex databases help record and manipulate copious amounts of data that may cover a multitude of activities such as:
- Customer interactions with your business via social media, emails and more
- Production data sent directly from machinery (sensors on production line equipment for example)
- Building historical records of marketing campaigns and their effectiveness in terms of particular metrics (open rates for emails, what advertising and promotions customers responded to, how long they spent on your website, what pages they visited, what they bought and much more)
- How customers use your product or service
Data from the database is then manipulated and integrated – such as moving it to a data warehouse – by your data analytics staff or your outsourced professional (possibly the same people who provided your bespoke database development) to enable meaningful insights and intelligence to be revealed.
So for production, marketing, product usage and other business tasks the database is pivotal and the more flexible and easy to use it is, the better results your business can expect operationally and for data analytics.
Developing Your Database
You may well prefer to work with an experienced bespoke database development partner rather than develop your databases in-house, and if so it may form part of an overall software development project tailored to your requirements or it might be simply for improving your database facility.
Either way, your expert partner will work with you to understand your aims and objectives and what limitations you’re experiencing with your current database set up.
Customise Existing Databases Or All-New Software
It may not be necessary to completely replace what you’re currently using: it’s possible that your existing databases can be customised and integrated so they ‘play well’ together and thus remove or at least vastly reduce the need for duplicating activity such as re-keying the same inputted information.
Another advantage with this customisation is your staff will be continuing to use software they’ve become familiar with. That said, ‘ground up’ bespoke database development software should be highly intuitive and, aside from a simple learning curve, prove easy enough for your staff to get to grips with.
