Every figure tells a story - what is your data telling you?
What are your most popular products or services? Which of those has the highest profit margin? What percentage of you sales comes from existing customers and from new? When you have a clear picture of how your business is performing you can make better-informed decisions on how to drive it forward and increase sales.
Try out the great tools in Excel
You don’t need to be an accountant or a maths whiz to dig out business insights from your raw data; Excel 2010, with the familiar plus the new features, can help you truly understand your numbers, making it easy to examine your figures from all angles and pull out useful trends. Get a free trial of Office Home & Business 2010 and try out Excel for yourself.
Explore some of the data analysis and management features of Excel 2010
Manage customer and sales information
Microsoft Outlook 2010 with Business Contact Manager (BCM) is a great CRM tool for small business owners because you can use it to keep track of sales and leads, campaign successes and customer pipelines.
When you know who you need to ring, why and when, you can focus your sales and marketing activities more effectively and productively.
Dive deeper with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
And if your growing business needs a more sophisticated customer relationship management solution, Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online can help you uncover new sales opportunities and cuts the cost of sales; whilst giving existing customers better service and a richer, more personalised relationship. You won’t need an in-house IT department and you won’t need corporate-sized budgets; in fact, you could be up and running within 48 hours.
Need some advice?
Enter your postcode into our Pinpoint tool (below right) to find a Microsoft Small Business Specialist Partner near you.
*Note: Outlook 2010 with BCM is part of the Microsoft Office Standard 2010 and Office Professional Plus 2010 editions, currently available through volume licensing (5+ PCs) only.
