A Business-driven approach is any process of identifying the data needed to support business activities, acquiring or capturing those data, and maintaining them in the data resource.

Everyday, billions of data and information gets carried across different communications media.  The number medium is of course the internet.  Another data communications media are television and mobile phones.

Any non-business individual or entity may not find the real significance of these data.  They are merely there to because it is innate in people to communicate and get connected with each other.

But individuals or organizations who think about business take advantage of these data in a business-driven approach.  They try to collect, aggregate, summarize and statistically analyze data so they know what products they may want to see and who among the people will be their target market.

Many people who started from scratch but were driven by passion for business have created multinational corporations.  Traditional vendors started from the sidewalk and took a business driven approach to move their wares from the streets to the internets where millions of potential buyers converge.

Today’s businesses are very closely dependent on the use of technology.  More and more transactions are going online.  With the possibility of high security money transfers, people can buy items from continents away using just their credit cards.  They can also maintain online accounts and make fund transfers in seconds at one click of the mouse.

Software application developers and vendors are coming up with innovative tools to help business optimize their performance.  Large data warehouses, those repositories of all sorts data getting bulkier every single minute, are being set up and companies are investing in labor intensive high power capable computers connected to local area networks and the internet.

To manage these data warehouses, database administrators use relational database technology with the aid of tools like Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Resource Management (CRM), Advance Planner and Optimizer (APO), Supply Chain Management (SCM), Business Information Warehouse (BIW), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), Human Resource Management System (HRMS) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) among thousands of others.

To keep businesses stable and credible especially when dealing with a global market using the internet, it needs to ensure security of critical data and information.  Keeping these data safe is a responsibility which requires coordinated, continuous and very focused efforts.  Companies should invest in infrastructures that shield critical resources.

To keep the business afloat in all situations, it has to see to it that procurement and contract management is well maintained and coordinated.  It has to wield substantial purchasing power to cope up with new and highly competitive contracting methods.

A business needs to constantly evaluate enterprise resource planning implementation and should have a distinct department to manage finance and human resources with principles that are sound.

Collecting, sharing and reporting of technology information by the business organizations should be strategized to effectively manage investment in technology and at the same time reduce burden of managing redundant and unrelated information.

All these mentioned requirements in a business-driven approach should follow a business framework.  This framework will guide the company’s staff and talents so that all they do will be profitable for the company.  The business framework will also make it easy for applications developer, especially if they are in-house developers, to tailor cut their outputs to make the organizations function at its optimum.

A business-driven approach involves keen appreciation of tiny details, spotting and tracing of industry trends and patterns, very careful and analytical planning, constant research on the needs and preferences of potential buyers and intensive use and investment of the latest in technology.