Having a growing business is definitely something to be proud of, right? But behind that success, there’s one problem that often causes headaches: your data is a mess 😊. Sales data in one place, inventory data elsewhere, and financial data who knows where. Not to mention, stocktaking could take a whole day. Data reconciliation? Well, that’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. It’s complicated and exhausting!
Let’s talk about how to tackle these problems in a simpler way. But before we dive into the solution, we need to understand the challenges businesses face, especially in Indonesia, and how to address them. Let’s take a look!
Common Problems Faced by Growing Businesses
- Messy Data: When a business is still small, managing data might be easy. But as the business grows, so does the data. Sales, inventory, finance, customers—everything piles up and gets scattered all over the place. This can be really annoying, especially when the data doesn’t connect with each other. For example, when doing stocktaking. The inventory data in the warehouse is different from the data in the system. Or when you try to reconcile sales data with financial data, they don’t match. Ugh, that’s frustrating, right?
- Long and Exhausting Stocktaking: Stocktaking is like a mandatory ritual for retail, manufacturing, or logistics businesses. But who isn’t annoyed by this process? Just imagine, you have to count items one by one in the warehouse, then match them with the data in the system. If there are only a few items, it might still be okay. But what if it’s thousands? Wow, it could take all day. Not to mention if the data doesn’t match. You’ll have to figure out where the mistake is, check everything again, and start from scratch. It’s so tiring!
- Complicated Data Reconciliation: Data reconciliation is all about matching data from different sources to ensure accuracy. For example, matching sales data from the cashier system with financial data from the accounting system. If the data doesn’t match, you need to figure out where the problem is. The problem is, this process is really complicated, especially if the data is spread across different disconnected systems. Your team could spend hours, or even days, just checking and reconciling data. Meanwhile, the time, effort, and cost spent on this process could be redirected to more productive tasks.
In Indonesia, messy data, long stocktaking, and complicated data reconciliation are not just caused by internal company factors. There are some external challenges that make these issues even more complex. Let’s go over the common external factors.
External Challenges Faced by Businesses
- Geographical Archipelago: Indonesia consists of thousands of islands with uneven infrastructure. This makes data integration difficult, especially for companies with branches in remote areas.
- Underdeveloped Infrastructure: Slow or even nonexistent internet connections in some regions can hinder data transmission. Or perhaps the internet is available, but frequently interrupted.
- Low Digital Literacy: Many businesses, especially SMEs, still don’t fully understand the importance of technology and digital transformation to support their operations.
- Limited Budget: Many companies think that technology or digital transformation is expensive and unnecessary. They feel that the current methods are sufficient, when in fact, they’re heading towards business decline, lower productivity, reduced income, or unseen wastage.
- Reluctance to Adopt Technology: Many companies are hesitant or unwilling to change because they are comfortable with manual methods.
Solutions to Apply
Now, to stop stressing over the problems mentioned above, as already mentioned, the main solution is digital transformation. Digital transformation is not just about using new technology, but also about strategic changes in how businesses operate. The goal is to make business processes more efficient, faster, and more accurate.
Here are some solutions that can be applied in line with gradual digital transformation:
- Data Integration: Consolidate all scattered data into one centralized system. This will make it easier for you to access, manage, and analyze data.
- Data Transformation: Change data from various sources with different formats into a standardized format so it can be processed easily.
- Data Consolidation: Combine data from different sources into one centralized platform, such as a data repository or data warehouse.
- Automation of Processes: Use automation technology to directly synchronize incoming data with the system, eliminating the need for manual input.
- Automated Data Reconciliation: Use a system that can automatically reconcile data from various sources. If there’s any discrepancy, the system will notify you and help identify where the issue lies.
- AI-Powered Data Analysis: Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyze data and provide deeper insights. For example, AI can help predict market demand or manage inventory to avoid overstocking or running out of stock.
Synchro as a Solution
But maybe you want to learn more about digital transformation, right? You can read more about digital transformation in the article, or watch the video on digital transformation goals.
For those of you who want to solve scattered data, long stocktaking, and complicated data reconciliation, there’s a local startup, PT National Data Integrator (PT NDI), that can help with your digital transformation. PT NDI is a technology company focused on creating solutions for data issues. They have various tools for digitalization, automation, and data integration, one of which is called Synchro. By using Synchro, all your messy data and infrastructure quality issues can still be transmitted, processed, and consolidated into a centralized data system. This allows you to Integrate Data (unify data from different sources into one platform), Transform Data (standardize data with different formats), Consolidate Data (combine data into a data repository or data warehouse), Automate Processes, and Automated Data Reconciliation (automatically match data from various sources).
If you’re curious about the solutions from PT NDI, head over to the Synchro website at https://synchro.co.id. There, you can find detailed information and useful articles to make everything easier.
