Startups know that growth is essential—
growth into a viable, sustainable enterprise guided by quick-thinking decision makers who aren’t afraid to innovate and pivot when necessary. This core competency—the ability to successfully and rapidly evolve—hinges on the effective use of data. Data and statistics are used to analyze market size, forecast revenue projections, and develop customer acquisition strategies, just to name a few.
While early stage startups may not have the volume of accounts that more mature brands boast, it behooves startups looking to sell goods through third party channels to start off on the right foot with a strong data collection tool. At GoSpotCheck, we work with large-scale retail brands as well as smaller companies with far fewer accounts, and what we hear from the field never changes—the importance of accurate data is crucial. Within the startup world, where companies must evolve quickly to stay relevant and be competitive, accessible data delivered in real time is paramount.
With an easy-to-use application that organizes field data, leaders of startups can quickly access the information they need to evaluate performance. Let’s take a closer look at three of the most important ways a well-designed mobile data collection tool can help startups excel.
Account Management. In the beginning, an early stage startup may only have a few small accounts, and for that reason alone, it is extremely important that account management is taken seriously. Startups that rely on a strong mobile data collection platform can share useful data, such as inventory levels, pricing information and merchandising plans. An account that is impressed by a new brand’s relationship management may be more inclined to expand a contract and give preferential in-store treatment.
Clarity. Startups constantly juggle an abundance of new information and attaining a clear grasp of retail execution data from the field can prove quite difficult. But, field intelligence is extremely valuable, and manual data collection—often in the form of disjointed excel spreadsheets and email attachments—is prone to error. The optimal mobile data collection application provides clarity. It can furnish rich media fields, GPS location details and time stamps, which allows startup leaders to virtually plant their feet in the field to test new products.
Insight. A sophisticated mobile data collection application automatically aggregates and simplifies data on the backend, creating high-level views, graphs and charts—not to mention a streamlined searchable database. This leads to shortcuts that drill down to essential data sets, permitting data manipulation and the ability to draw business insights quickly.
The right mobile data collection tool is a startup’s best friend. The power of the tool becomes more pronounced as the number of accounts and retail locations increase, but there are far fewer growing pains if a company leverages a robust platform right from the start. Feel free to contact us to learn more about how we support startups and growing brands.
