I've yet to meet a client who didn't require, in some form or another, some way to analyze their data. Whether it was simple queries or reports, or more advanced dashboards or analytics, everyone wants to be able to analyze their data.

And that's a good thing.

But the first question that should be asked whenever we decide to analyze any data is "Once we've analyzed the data, what next action will we take as a result of that analysis?"

Or put more simply, "Once you know, what will you do?"

"That's interesting" or "It would be good to know" are not actions. "Let's try a different marketing message" or "Let's change the price on that" or "Let's stop doing that" are actions. Even "That's working, let's keep doing what we're doing" is an action!

So before you spend a lot of time and energy analyzing any data, ask yourself, "Once I know, what will I do?"