Databases – an electronic filing cabinet
If you’re like most of today’s businesses, you manage your company’s vital information electronically, in database format. As your information grows, your database grows—these days, more quickly than ever.
For some companies, “information management” means simply stuffing more data into the database without worrying too much about the eventual effect. If you think of your database as a form of a filing cabinet, you’ll understand that at some point, if you avoid organizing and deleting old files, the file drawers are eventually going to jam.
Databases outperform filing cabinets by a long shot. They have the capacity to cover as many topics as one can imagine and deliver data in the wink of an eye. But, with at least one-fourth of data becoming obsolete annually, it’s easy to see how quickly mismanaged information can grow to unwieldy proportions. With consistent effort and attention to some important details, it doesn’t have to become an impossible situation.
• In the first place, make sure your database is well-constructed by a reputable designer
• There must be one place and only one place to find a person or item
• The database should allow for future expansion
• The database should be designed so that it’s easy to use
• Identification of records should be numeric to simplify sorting and searching
• Characteristics of fields should be permanent and unchanging for consistency
Software designed to “de-duplicate” and consolidate data from various data sources is available to guard against redundancy. More sophisticated systems also identify possible data-entry errors and automatically correct ZIP codes, verify street numbers and ensure compliance with postal requirements.
A properly created and maintained database yields clean, reliable information that can be used to generate all sorts of improvements in your business—from customer relations to product placement. ‡
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