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Startup Informly Simplifies Big Data for Small Business Owners

Today, research shows companies that invest in sophisticated analytics tools gain a competitive advantage. But, this level of data analysis has been the domain of big business and typically out of reach for most small business owners. Dan Norris of new startup Informly believes that is about to change with cloud adoptions among small businesses exploding.

“There are many benefits like the ability to access services from anywhere, lower upfront costs and more integrated and sophisticated applications. But, more data is being stored in the cloud which means it can be analyzed and used by small business owners unlike ever before,” he said in a statement.

Norris’s view is supported by cloud accounting platform Xero, which has grown to 100,000 customers in 100 countries since launching in 2006.

“Small businesses are flexible, and tech savvy operators can move services like project management, customer relationship management and accounting to the cloud easily. They aren’t inhibited by the old infrastructure that restricts large companies and once in the cloud, they can use this data to better understand their business and make better decisions,” Norris continued.

Informly is a free Web and mobile app that communicates with cloud services like Google (News - Alert) Analytics and Xero and shows business owners a simple report on how they are performing, enabling them to save time, along with several other benefits. Dashboards have been around for a while and promote the idea that small business owners are spending too much time to understand their data.

But, through Norris’s research and experience working with small business owners, he found this is often not the case. “Many small business owners wouldn’t understand much of a typical website analytics report. The issue isn’t just that there are a lot of systems to log into, it’s that the reports themselves are too complex and small business owners don’t have the time to learn each system’s reports.”

So, the data, according to Norris, doesn’t just have to be centralized, it has to be simplified. And Informly can do just that. Informly distils a company’s data from cloud-based into simple charts on the one page. Then, the charts compare month-by-month giving context and are color coded so business owners can see which areas need attention.

This ease and simplicity means business owners can spend a few seconds to understand how their business is doing.

Want to learn more about cloud computing solutions geared specifically towards small to medium-sized businesses?  Don’t miss the Cloud4SMB Expo, collocated with ITEXPO Miami 2013, Jan 29- Feb. 1 in Miami, Florida.  Stay in touch with everything happening at Cloud4SMB Expo. Follow us on Twitter.