Collecting sales and customer data is good and necessary. In today’s business climate the difference between success and failure often lies in your ability to collect and analyze data.

But how do you manage to keep up? The amount of data is growing steadily as we get more and more ways of collecting it. Collection is one thing, but you also have to store, organize and manage, not to mention analyze it in a useful way.

Go for online storage, from the beginning

Getting your own infrastructure is tempting but it will soon become unmanageable, unless you have huge resources. Better then to go for online cloud storage from the beginning.

There are many options, from local companies to the giants, such as Amazon AWS. By choosing a smaller provider you may be able to get better service, but choose carefully, because you want your provider to survive in the long run, or you will have to start over.

Use scaleable storage

We’re not talking about gigabytes or terabytes here. Storage capacity is not the issue. Being able to access and search your data is.

Make sure to pick a scaleable database technology, right from the start. By using a standard product you’re getting yourself the option of moving in the future, if necessary.

Find the best analysis tools

It’s finally time to analyze your data, and this is the tricky part. You’ll need to find a good analytics tool that will let you find the answers you need, while also allowing you the flexibility to access any data sources you may have.

There are many providers both of software packages, such as Tibco, and online tools, such as the ones from www.planhat.com. What you choose is up to you and in the end it’s all down to what kind of analysis you need.