A database is a practical way to maintain information. The top 3 database (my humble opinion) are Resources, Work Flow and Assets. With these 3 databases, all of company management can maintain and view all the critical information surrounding the business.
Here’s a summary of each of these databases.
Resources: Contact information for staff, customers, vendors, prospects, regulatory agencies, etc.
Work Flow: Step by step process that is necessary for your business to acquire new customers, produce and delivery products and services.
Assets: Non human resources needed to conduct your business.
All 3 of these databases are critical to your business. My personal favorite database is Assets. Most businesses are on a growth path. We typically talk in terms of revenue or profit to quantify the growth. We want to grow our revenue 25% this year. However, ultimately, real business growth is measured in terms of Assets. What do you do with profit? Put cash in the bank. Cash is an Asset. Buy a building. That’s an asset. Buy some equipment. Asset.
Maintaining Assets is key to your business growth. Many assets are not tangible. Certainly the software to run your business is an asset. Even more important is your intellectual property. This could truly be in the form of a patent or simply the collective knowledge of you and your staff. Understanding your collective knowledge is paramount to growing your business.
Some examples of Intellectual Property are procedures, training guides, market surveys and recipes.
Once we identify the various components of your business knowledge then we organize it into pieces and we enter those pieces into the database. As we enhance our knowledge then we update the database. This repetitive process will result in a valuable collection of information to help you better understand and grow your business.