The purpose for the majority of the small and medium-sized companies is to improve their sales or growth. Nowadays, the online sales and the electronic data analysis represent a crucial phase to achieve this. Since a considerable number of years now, the use of software in the decision making by the large companies has been a regular practice. The competition this business faces is fearful, and the decisions are in some cases critical. On the other hand this scenario does not always apply for the small and medium ones. There are three main reasons for this.
First, their sales are not as considerable as they can be for the large business. This means they do not confront the same decision-making pressure as the large ones do. Furthermore the potential negative consequences from bad decisions do not impact as hard as it does in large business.
Second, the characteristics inherent to this type of business such as the attraction of customers according the location and design of the facility, or the extensive display of goods to facilitate the selection of them (1) generates often a switch of consumers. Ergo, purchases from another business due to attractive circumstances, for instance provisional especial price in a product or service are common situation. As a result the potential “single-time customers” can provoke a significant variability of consumers.
Third, the early development of the company itself can be a family whom traditions and habits can influence the decisions. In this instance the hierarchical position plays a central roll in the decision making process. In several occasions this decisions are made experience-based and what is more risky, ignoring the market trends. Moreover in other cases, there is not a specific department or person in charge of neither the decisions nor the direction the company must go.
The loose of one client, although is not