Building a Better Database

Joann’s Brooklyn-based bakery (not a real business) was growing at a good pace.  The business she had started with her uncle in a small, one-room shop over a Chinese restaurant had grown into a storefront location on the ground floor of a busy intersection.  As more customers ordered more cakes, donuts, cookies and pastries, Joann found that her small desk was getting piled up with slips of paper with customer addresses, delivery and vendor information, reminders of customer birthdays and a binder with critical information on her part-time delivery crew.  As a result, orders started to get misplaced or incorrectly filled. Sound familiar?
Your business might not be exactly like this one, but perhaps you can identify with the numerous pieces of paper and binders some people use to keep track of the information they deal with on a daily basis.  There are many things that separate successfully growing businesses from stagnant ones, but one of the key elements of efficiency is how these businesses manage their information.  Even in 2005, some small businesses have no computerized information management system.  These businesses are the ones that give their accountant invoices, purchase orders and boxes of receipts every quarter or once a year. As Joann found, trying to keep track of business information can get in the way of baking cakes and fulfilling orders.
ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE
Many businesses use Microsoft Excel to store and manage their data.  Excel makes it easy to input all kinds of information into its familiar spreadsheet, and while that’s fine for crunching numbers, it’s not useful for managing information and showing how different data relate to each other.  The bottom line is how to become more efficient at keeping track of all your paper-based information.  Databases are the perfect tool to help organize information into a logical structure and, even more important, to show the relationships between the data.
The power of a database is to enable raw data to be turned into useful information. In Joann’s case, she could have one database that stores customer records.  This database would contain individual fields for last name, first name, address, customer ID and so on.  She could have another database for customer ID, item description (chocolate cake, glazed donut, etc.), item ID, order date and completion date. Finally, she could have a third database for her parttime truck drivers with fields for their relevant information (name, address, contact length, on-time delivery performance, customer service rating).
Joann could then link these databases together and get critical business intelligence from what before were just pieces of paper and seemingly useless data.  For example, Joann’s database could first tell her that 50 customers ordered 50 glazed donuts, 25 sugar donuts and 10 marble cakes, and then over time show her profitable trends: By linking her customer orders and customer database together, Joann could identify her most profitable customers.  By linking this information to a mapping program (such as Microsoft’s Mappoint, which creates a color-coded map charting customers’ locations), she could get a clear overview of her customers and what sections of Brooklyn generate the most and least business.  This information could be important in deciding where to expand service or whether to advertise more or less in certain areas.
Using her database of truck drivers and customer orders, Joann could get a clear picture of who her better drivers are (in terms of customer service and being on time or late) and implement incentive programs to retain her best drivers so she is not constantly looking for new ones and spending time training them. Programs like Microsoft Access or Filemaker Pro let you create any type of database you need with the flexibility to manage your information without restrictions.
However, many databases take the form of off-theshelf software and could also be useful: Microsoft Outlook is a very good solution (I use it myself ) for organizing contact information and to-do lists; ACT! and Gold Mine Software are specifically designed to help businesses manage the relationships associated with their contact information. In addition, there are many database-like programs for specific industries such as auto mechanic shops, dog kennels and doctors’ offices.  While off-the-shelf software is flexible to a certain degree, it will generally be more limited in its customization options.
Building your own database gives you a fully custom-tailored solution for your business.  Bear in mind that while creating a database can be complicated, database software comes with helpful wizards and tools to make it as easy as possible.
Finally, if you are without the internal resources to build the proper database for your business, it can be extremely beneficial to hire a database consultant. Business owners and employees who use databases to manage and understand information will find that they can stop reacting only from gut instinct and intuition and start operating based on facts, solid trends and lucid patterns — and propel their company forward.
These are three of the more popular desktop database systems:
Microsoft Access
http://www.microsoft.com/accesss
Bundled with Microsoft Office Professional; works seamlessly with Microsoft Office; on the desktops of most businesses that have Microsoft Office.
File Maker Pro
http://www.filemaker.com
One of the simpler databases to use; an intuitive interface; loyal and large group of users (second in size to Access).
QuickBase
http://www.quickbase.com
From Intuit, this database is a good solution for quickly making data available to others online.