As labor costs amount for nearly 60% of spending at companies, the odds are stacked against companies not dedicated to efficiency. Some simple organizational changes and minor database uses could help you redirect staff away from busy work to generating profit. It’s important for every company to figure out the ways that data management can help
Here are five ways that an online database could help your business.
1. Climate Change is Real
If you haven’t realized the direction that the planet is headed, it’s time to start paying attention. If you’re near any coast, you know that the threat of extreme weather has increased, bringing flooding, wildfires, and unpredictable results. While you might think your business model is immune, if you’re using computer storage for any of your data, you’re at risk.
With an online database, you can ensure that you’re protected from any kind of weather. An online database will be hosted in multiple locations, meaning that if one server goes down, another is there to back it up. Climate change impacts us all in a variety of ways, so it’s important to be aware.
Keeping digital backups ensures that you can restart your business in the event of any issues. Your customers might not even know you were hit with a disaster when your site and functionality is moved over to your backup database.
When you store everything on site, you risk keeping all of your eggs in one basket. Learn more about how you can protect yourself with the help of an online database.
2. Stay Super Secure
While it’s important to have as much access to your system as possible, many companies make the mistake of keeping everything in one location. Having everything in one physical location ensures that just one simple mistake ends up costing you millions. One security breach is all that it takes to bring down your entire business.
Most small and medium businesses don’t have the money to spend on full-time dedicated security staff. When you keep your database online, you ensure that you have security you can depend on while your business grows. Security is baked into the cake of online database management.
Even just having everything in one physical space is a dangerous threat to keeping your business protected. When someone could end up breaching your site from an unsecured WiFi connection or from breaking into the physical location of your servers, you’re at risk.
Keeping your business secure is challenging but if you’re banking on everything being located in one place, you’re taking a risk you don’t need to. Let a database do the work of maintaining security for you.
3. Centralize Your Systems
As an increasing number of companies employ dispersed staff across the planet, more tools are needed to maintain productivity. With people needing to access the same data any time of day because of time differences, it’s important to have one place to get it all. A physical location won’t do, as data transfers could be dependent on staff and take too long to implement.
If you need everyone to be using essentially the same tools, they need a place to access them from. IF you have licensed tools or a limited number of users who can use those tools, you need to have them in a place where everyone can access them. When you have an online database, you offer access to everyone who has an internet connection.
If you have business-critical data that multiple people need access to at the same time, an online database is key. Often you need to track changes in real time and can’t do that from an individual terminal. You need to have files located in one place so that changes are tracked, accessible, and sent out instantly.
On top of that, everything needs to be stored safely and securely. Rather than relying on individual machines to be updated regularly, you can keep files in that one database.
4. Make HR Less Painful
When you’re trying to manage staff records as your HR department’s makeup changes, you need to have everything in one place. When you’re trying to track down files, you’re wasting time and resources with every second your staff is searching. In the absence of a central database, there’s a higher potential for losing your paperwork.
Having all records in one place also maintains the security of so much personal data. When you’re dealing with HR information, you’re often holding on to banking info, medical information, and a personal record. This is privileged information that you should use carefully and securely.
If you let this information get out and into the wrong hands, you risk having your employees’ data sold to a third party. If you’re holding onto personal data, you risk violating all sorts of laws and being subject to lawsuits.
Also, when you make the day easier for HR, they can focus on other elements of your business to help spur its growth.
5. Track Inventory Smarter
If you’re running a large company with a diverse set of locations, you’re going to struggle to balance out your inventory.
Without constantly updated information sitting in one place, you risk wasting money on inventory that won’t sell. You also waste space in your warehouse when you have to store things that you don’t need.
If you don’t have a constantly updated inventory database, you risk running out of vital items. When you have an online marketplace that your customers buy from, it needs to be linked to a system everyone can access. If you’re still entering in things manually, you’re running behind.
The Variety of Database Uses Will Only Increase
As companies grow and expand into new technological fields, the number of ways that a database can help you and your company does too. The database uses multiply with each major increase in technology.
For how these changes can improve communication, check out our latest guide.