RAI Stone: importance of big data for SMB

As reported by Forbes, 75 percent of small businesses plan to increase their investment in big data analytics over the next two years. However, the intimidating volume of data out there, the expensive technology involved, and the extremely time consuming means of utilizing it put big data out of reach of many small business owners. Startup RAI Stone Group is bridging this gap.

Small businesses are generally riskier clients because they are sensitive to market fluctuations, have smaller loan and asset amounts, and often keep inadequate financial statements and tax documents. Simultaneously, the 28 million small businesses in America account for 54% of all U.S. sales and are driving the U.S job recovery providing 7 million of the 10.9 million jobs added since the Great Recession.

“The SBA says that around a third of SMBs make it beyond their 10th year, often due to the fact that they rarely reach out for financial assistance until it’s too late or financial service providers are unable to spend the time and administrative overhead to assess their unique needs,” said Sam Zordich, CEO and Founder of RAI Stone Group.

The RAI Stone software provides unique “What If”  dynamic modelling that enables financial service providers to answer SMB owners’ critical business questions, such as whether to expand locations, add salespeople, or offer a new product line. This, in turn, enables SMBs to understand how various choices will impact their cash flow, profit, and overall financial stability.

Its cloud-bases SaaS software makes that financial service providers can provide SMB clients with the data they need to make informed decisions in as little as 15 minutes. It offers data on the past, present, and future of a company”s performance.

Using its powerful algorithms, financial service providers can analyze the gap between their customers’ current business performance and their goals, without spending hours collecting data, running ratios, or building spreadsheets. The software’s predictive model was built to prove which small business variables have the most impact on growth and is able to predict with a high degree of accuracy whether or not, and by how much, a company is expected to grow based on these variables.

“What really excited me about our technology is that it allows financial planners and their customers to be on the same page with how to improve their financial performance,” added Zordich.