Databases for Small Business: Essentials of Database Management, Data Analysis,and Staff Training for Entrepreneurs and Professionals
by Anna Manning
CHAPTER 9
Collecting Your Data
Clear goals are essential for efficient data collection. The best any technology can do for your small business is help it move toward its goals cheaply and quickly. Chapter 5 covered setting business goals, levers, and metrics. Chapter 7 addressed database design, with business goals very much in mind. This chapter introduces data collection and explains a number of methods for doing it.
Overview
In all likelihood, you are already collecting data. For example, if you are accepting money from customers, you are probably invoicing them and keeping records. Such data can be placed into your database directly. However, collecting data this way does not help you understand why people behave the way they do. Therefore, ...