Data collection is critical for any small business. The data you collect can help you make better decisions about your customers, your marketing strategy, and even your overall business strategy. But collecting data can be a challenge, especially for small businesses.

No matter what industry or niche you’re in, one of the things that can make or break you is how you handle data collection. There are many different types of data collection such as survey questions, demographics questionnaires, customer data, web analytics, and more. The important thing is that you have a system in place to collect this data so you can use it to improve your business.

Failing to follow the best practices for data collection can have serious consequences such as decreased customer satisfaction, lower data quality, and even legal issues. Small businesses should focus on data collection as much, if not more, than bigger businesses because they don’t have the same resources to fall back on. A big business might be ok with losing a few invoices a month and can get by losing $10,000 in potential revenue. But can you afford to?

Here are a few best practices for small businesses to follow for successful data collection:

1. Create a Process for Data Management

There are many different methods of data collection, but the most important thing is to have a process in place. Whether you’re just getting started with your data collection efforts or refocusing them, this process should be repeatable and scale-able so that as you grow, you’re not having to reinvent the wheel each month.

There are many aspects to consider when creating your process for data collection such as:

• How will you collect the data?
• Who will be responsible for collecting the data?
• When will the data be collected?
• How often will the data be collected?
• What format will the data be collected in?

Avoiding time-consuming and costly mistakes is essential for small businesses. Defining the data set you need and how you will collect it from the outset will help save time and money down the line.

2. Be Consistent with Data Integrity

Data integrity is essential for small businesses. This means that the data you collect needs to be accurate and consistent. There are a few ways to ensure this:

• Use the same method of data collection each time: This could be surveys, customer feedback forms, web analytics, or something else.
• Create a data dictionary: This is a reference tool that defines all of the data points you’re collecting and how they should be used. This is especially helpful if you have multiple team members responsible for data collection.
• Use templates: Templates help to ensure that the data is collected in a consistent format. This makes it easier to analyze and use later on.

Stick to a time frame: Timing is everything when it comes to data collection. Make sure you’re collecting data at the same time each day, week, or month. This will help you spot trends over time.

Being consistent with your data collection methods is crucial so you can track efforts over time and have the ability to make business decisions based on insights you’re discovering.

3. Collect and Store Your Data Securely

It is important for small businesses to collect data and have a secure place to store it. You are probably collecting various types of information from your customers, partners, and employees, in addition to the data you track about your own business. Make sure you’re storing this securely. At GoCanvas, we help our clients store their data securely in the cloud, so there’s no need to worry about file cabinets or physical storage space.

4. Make Data Collection Simple

Another best practice for small business data collection is to make it as simple as possible for your workforce and/or your customers to get you the information you’re looking for. No one wants to fill out a 20-question survey, so try to keep things short and sweet. You can also use incentives to encourage participation in surveys or feedback forms.

Instead of asking people to fill out any paper forms at all, why not use online surveys to collect this information? You’ll get your raw data back in real-time quickly and securely, and you won’t have to deal with terrible handwriting, torn pages, or completely lost forms. Watch this video about how GoCanvas can help you go paperless and mobile with your data collection.

5. Evaluate and Improve Your Data Collection Process

As business owners, it’s important to set time aside to take a step back and evaluate your data collection efforts, as well as the data itself. Ask yourself what’s working and what’s not working in your data collection process. Analytics is one way to gain insight into what is working in your data and what is not.

By using the latest features and technologies (signature capture, integrations, GPS recording, barcode scanning, calculations, etc.) you can improve the quality of your data and make sure it is high-quality.

You might also find that one element of your data collection process is holding you back. Tightening the sales cycle in a small business is incredibly important for growth and sustainability.

Modernize the Way Your Small Business Collects Data

Now you can easily modernize the way you are collecting data for your small business. Whether you are looking to improve your data handling processes or advance reporting, we hope you consider using GoCanvas as your data collection tool. Sign up for GoCanvas free and give our platform a try today!

Reducing workplace hazards as much as possible ensures the health and well-being of your employees, and also prevents the costly repairs, lawsuits, and lost reputation that can come from a safety-related incident. One of the key methods of proactive hazard control is Process Hazard Analysis (PHA). In fact, OSHA finds PHA to be such an important step that it’s required as part of their standards. This article covers one of the components of PHA, Hazard & Operability Analysis (HAZOP) and digital templates you can use for your organization.

What is HAZOP?

Identifying risks means taking a systematic look at the way processes and operations work – both the way they are intended to work and the ways in which they work in practice. A Hazard & Operability Analysis is one way of doing that. During a HAZOP study, your team will break down the process or operation into smaller segments and examine each one for potential hazards. 

The goal of a HAZOP is to discover design and engineering issues that may lead to hazards. These issues are often overlooked during an initial design phase because everything is assumed to go according to plan. By bringing in a multi-disciplinary team, a broader view of the process can be had. Unintended ways in which the process or operation may be performed can be found, and any hidden hazards discovered before they have a chance to cause a catastrophe. 

To understand the concept better, let’s take a look at a simple example. Imagine you have some complex process. Your HAZOP team has broken that process down into many tiny portions, called nodes. Imagine further that one of those nodes involves pumping coolant from a storage tank to a piece of machinery. The team would then identify all the ways in which this process may go wrong. For example:

• Perhaps the pump stops pumping. What hazards does an overheating machine cause?
• Maybe the pipe carrying the coolant bursts. Will the escaping coolant burn someone?

These types of questions are asked and answered about every aspect, or node, of the process.

Who should be a part of a HAZOP analysis?

Picking the right people for a HAZOP team is extremely important. In fact, if you pick the wrong people, you may be better off doing no HAZOP analysis at all. The purpose of a HAZOP study is to provide your staff with peace of mind regarding the safety of the process and operations they engage in. Further, HAZOP analysis provides the groundwork for preparing employees for dealing with the potential hazards that are discovered. If the staff performing the HAZOP is incomplete, or isn’t qualified, then everyone will be ill-prepared for potential hazards and have a false sense of security while on the job.

Therefore, it’s important that the team you assemble to conduct a HAZOP study is well-qualified in their particular area of expertise. However, it’s equally important that you bring in people from a variety of disciplines. The strength of a HAZOP study comes from being able to view the process outside of the bounds in which it was designed. This requires as many perspectives as possible. 

How do you perform a HAZOP study? 

Once you’ve assembled your team and determined which process or operation they’ll be conducting their HAZOP study on, the process itself is straightforward and highly systematic. The team should conduct their study by following the six steps listed below:

1. Identify nodes

Each part of the system should be broken down into the smallest possible component. Each of these components, or nodes, should then be examined individually. Performing the study in this way ensures that all aspects of the system will get a thorough review.

2. Use guide words to identify deviations

Guide words are the heart of a HAZOP study. For each of the guide words listed below, think of how it may apply to the node of the process being studied. In order to do this effectively, the parameters of the node should be determined and compared to the list of guide words. Custom guide words may be developed as the team sees fit.

• No or not – Something is not happening that should be.
• More – There is more of something than there should be.
• Less – There is less of something than there should be.
• As well as – Something else is happening in addition to the intended design: Oil as well as impurities.
• Part of – Only part of the process is operating as expected.
• Reverse – A process is behaving opposite of what is expected.
• Other than – A substitution has occurred: Something other than oil in the system.
• Early – A part of the process arrives or finishes early.
• Late – A part of the process arrives or finishes late.
• Before – A part of the process arrives or finishes before another one.
• After – A part of the process arrives or finishes after another one.

3. Identify the causes of those deviations

By applying the guide words to all of the parameters of a node of operations, your team will have identified the ways the parameters may be off. Now, they must brainstorm to determine all of the conditions that could lead to these parameters behaving incorrectly. By doing so, they’ll have identified many of the ways that hazards can develop. 

4. Determine the consequences

For each of the causes in the previous step, the team should figure out what the consequences of those causes are. This is an important part of determining exactly what safety hazards are presented by the problems. 

5. Identify safeguards

For any consequence that presents a safety hazard, the team should determine a list of safeguards that can help prevent that hazard from occurring. Additionally, they should come up with a procedure for dealing with those consequences should preventing them not work. 

6. Provide safety recommendations 

Finally, the team should assemble a list of safety recommendations based on the safeguards and mitigation procedures that they developed in the last step. This will give management the tools they need to make informed decisions about what changes need to be made to the processes, operations, and training surrounding them. 

Using software for safety and risk management 

Using paper forms is time-consuming, error prone, and makes it difficult to quickly distribute the results to everyone who needs them. Companies are going digital with their operations, leveraging tools like GoCanvas Safety  that is built to meet the complex needs of hazard management. Data entered into the mobile app becomes immediately available and can be presented in an easy-to-understand dashboard. The software allows you to examine key metrics from the data to determine trends and gain insights that will let you find and address hazards more quickly. By digitizing your safety management programs, you help ensure that your business stays compliant with rules and regulations in your industry.

Simplify Hazard Analysis with GoCanvas

Built-in to GoCanvas Safety is a set of templates that will make your hazard identification studies more streamlined and thorough than ever before. This includes not only templates for HAZOP, but for a wide range of hazard identification use cases. These tools and templates make specialized hazard and safety software a must-have for any operation that wants to maximize its hazard-reduction efforts.  Follow this link to access the HAZOP form template and get started today with a free trial of GoCanvas to see how it works.