If you want to make your business more profitable, here are the most common ways: -Increase the number of new customers - Sell more to existing customers - Streamline operations In reality, the right combination of the above does the trick. The right combination depends on the type of business, stage of business maturity, competitive conditions, and capital, among others. Regardless of the combination of the options chosen, one will not increase profits substantially without collecting, analyzing, and reporting more data. Until recently, it has been very expensive and time consuming to track most activities at a detailed level. Not anymore. The new software packages collect a lot of data automatically and make it easier for analysis and reporting. Thus, increasing profitability has become much easier. We are breaking a centuries-old vicious circle. We did not collect data because it was too expensive to capture, transmit, and store. We did not analyze data because we did not collect it. Now, there are no more excuses. We can now use data to make more money.