Eight out of ten businesses fail, according to Bloomberg within the first 18 months of operation. Only the top 20 percent of projects and ventures makes a successful debut and remain in the long run, for the next 50 years.
80 percent of them fold down, out to wind up affairs and to prepare the statement of liquidation reports.
What happened to these businesses? Or rather, the more important question, what really happened before the financial ruin?
Serial entrepreneur and Forbes contributor, Eric Wagner, presented five reasons.
- Reason number one: not really in touch with customers.
- Reason number two: no real differentiation in the market.
- Reason number three: failure to communicate value propositions in a clear, concise and compelling fashion.
- Reason number four: leadership breakdown at the top.
- Reason number five: inability to nail a profitable business model with proven revenue streams.
All these reasons have only one root cause! The business Kryptonite called, ‘Unstructured Data’!
“Lack of candor blocks smart ideas, fast action, and good people contributing all the stuff they’ve got. It’s a killer.” Jack Welch, Winning
What are unstructured data?
Unstructured data is everything else; it includes all not easily searchable, hidden, or valuable raw information that could have been known by the organization. Some of them are social media interactions, websites, business applications, mobile data, and digital.
What then are structured data?
These include fixed databases, employee ID numbers, zip codes, and SS numbers. In short, they can readily be determined and extracted for use. This is now the big problem of the current economy for businesses especially Small, Medium Enterprises (SMEs), most of the data generated in the world comprise of more than 80 percent unstructured data.
Most do not have the capacity or the right tools in processing them to be able to use it in dealing with dynamic economic environment.
80 percent unstructured data vs. 20 percent structured data
What if company X has 80 percent of business data buried and unintended hidden from stakeholders?
Most of these data may come from different departments such as IT, administrative, and production to maybe protect the company or to cover up something to keep their investors and lenders. Innovative ideas of employees being secreted from managers with the fear of failure is an example.
X Company employees should have communicated this properly to other helpful persons in the organizations and executives should also communicate that failed attempts of disruptive technologies will also be rewarded to foster improvements.
This way, it could have been saved from declining sales or stagnant profits escaping the worst case scenario where the state will close the business and liquidate their assets to pay the lenders. More often than not, most internal data and external data affecting the organization are being kept at the operational level accounting for at least 80 percent significant transactions which could determine the fate of the organization.
This is the reason why only 20 percent of trades succeed. It can be attributed to open communication, less bureaucracy, and communicated, clear cut goals.
The good news is!
If the problem is the cost of unstructured data analysis, you do not have to hire data scientists and be forced to pay fat fees.
Reasonably priced Artificial Intelligence with predictive learning powered through blockchain is the solution!
Pioneering blockchain platforms aiming to help SMEs from the different parts of the world to wisely utilize business data in gaining competitive advantages over other enterprises.
Using their analytics platform allows businesses to select what type of related data to be analyzed and then it will be fed to the network for an in depth analysis and produce reasonably accurate reports and predictions. Reports may include sales projection report, market analysis, and people management performance.
They will be used in helping proprietors and executives in making useful economic decisions and escape from the 80 percent rat trap and include their commerce in the 20 percent top success rate.
