Real-Time Financial Data and How It Could Help Your Business

Published: Jan 14, 2017

We live in an increasingly data-driven world and the scope of what can be gleaned about routine interactions and business processes continues to grow with each day that passes.

With good reason, much of the focus when it comes to ideas around deploying data for strategic business purposes has lingered particularly on efficiency gains and finding synergies in terms of the ways in which services are integrated and improved.

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But the ready availability of essential financial information is also helping businesses to become more robust and better able to protect themselves from a financial perspective.

Here’s a look at some of the ways in which access to real-time financial data is having an impact.

Transparency

Choosing the right people and the right companies to do business with or to operate in conjunction with is an essential part of what it takes to become and remain sustainable as an enterprise in any field. Being able to access key financial information instantly via online channels means that everyday business processes and interactions are becoming increasingly transparent.

Whereas in the past it may have taken bitter experience for a particular service provider to become aware of a partner company’s financial instability, they can now investigate their operating history in a matter of seconds.

Prioritizing targets

For business to business operations in particular, it really matters who you partner with and success in these contexts so often relies on finding the right kind of organisations to work with and provide services to.

The scope of real-time information that is readily available to all businesses today makes it easier than ever for a given service provider to identify precisely which companies it would most like to work with.

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In fact, the data and detail that’s out there and just a few clicks away can now make a significant contribution towards guiding the entire orientation of client acquisition strategies of certain companies.

Planning ahead

For businesses of all sizes and in any field there is a clear incentive to be ready for anything or at least to be as well prepared as possible for any eventuality.

Access to real-time financial information makes this more of a possibility for companies that are astute in their assessments of their own credit history and, in turn, the full scope of their financial options.

You might also consider How the cost of data breach is increasing.

One of the biggest killers of small and medium-sized businesses is a lack of cash flow and a lack of access to financing when it is most required. Understanding more about your own company’s credit record and ratings means knowing more about what your funding options are when financial constraints are beginning to bite.

Warning signs

While other data-based innovations might be more intriguing for the intellectually curious, the growing availability of real-time financial information is quietly having a major impact on the ways in which businesses function and plan ahead.

The key to it all is that ready access to financial information on both other businesses and your own makes it possible for warning signs to be detected in advance of financial problems rather than in hindsight when it might be all too little and too late to make a difference.

Keith Tully from Real Business Rescue is a leading corporate insolvency specialist. He knows what it takes to keep struggling businesses afloat and what qualities are required of company directors.