fbpx

SizeUp Your Competition: Level the Business Information Playing Field

Business intelligence (BI) is costly. Most small businesses don’t have the resources to invest in research that could improve the decision making process, cut costs or fuel innovation....

Business intelligence (BI) is costly. Most small businesses don’t have the resources to invest in research that could improve the decision making process, cut costs or fuel innovation. But, when it comes to developing a business plan or seeking outside VC investment, business intelligence is a key ingredient.

What if no one at your startup wants to, or possesses the skill set required to, roll up their sleeves and sift through piles of data and research? If you choose to outsource BI, one single business intelligence report can range from $2,000 to $20,000, depending on the level of data complexity, according to Forrester.

Let’s be honest – when is the last time you sat down to crunch numbers and analyze business data, including sales revenue or associated costs and incomes? It may fall lower on your to-do list than you’d like to admit.

 

Business Intelligence for All

Anatalio Ubalde, the founder and CEO of SizeUp, understood firsthand the barriers that small businesses have to overcome and decided to eliminate the hassle of gathering business intelligence information altogether. “Small businesses are already at a competitive disadvantage,” said Ubalde. “They don’t have access to the same quality of business intelligence and competitor analysis that big businesses have.

The company’s goal is to help entrepreneurs grow their companies and reduce small business failure. The best part — unlike expensive traditional research tools, SizeUp business intelligence is free.

The site provides many of the same demographic, industry, geographic, business, transportation, and cost-of-business data that large corporations use, but provides it at no cost, using powerful analytic search tools to enable all businesses to make smarter decisions.

SizeUp claims to help entrepreneurs, like you and me, make more intelligent decisions by helping us:

1.    Map of the competition:  Small businesses can map where competitors, customers, and suppliers are located, and use the map to isolate areas with many potential customers but little competition.

2.    Benchmark a specific business:  You can see how your business “sizes up” by comparing its performance to all competitors in the industry. This tool enables you to isolate areas for improvement and find ways to save money.

3.    Find the best places to advertise: Identify areas with the highest total or average revenue for your industry, the most underserved markets, and create custom demographic and business reports.

Anatalio debuted SizeUp this week at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco. He is one of only 30 finalists presenting at the Disrupt Battlefield competition, out of over 1,200 applicants worldwide. Take SizeUp for a test drive and let us know what you think? Is this tool useful for small businesses? Let me know in the comments section below.

Connect with SizeUp on Twitter. Did you enjoy this article? If so, subscribe to YFS Magazine and never miss an update. Don’t forget to make our friendship official and join Young, Fabulous & Self-Employed entrepreneurs on Facebook.

Photo Credit: © Sergej Khackimullin

 

 

 

© YFS Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Copying prohibited. All material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this material is prohibited. Sharing of this material under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International terms, listed here, is permitted.

   

In this article