Bread-crumbs and Business Intelligence

Why Every Company Is a Data Company, Even the Ones That Sell Bread

Growing up, I lived in one of the tallest buildings on our street. I say “tallest” as if it were some architectural marvel, but honestly, it only earned that title because there was a bakery on the ground floor. That oven gave it height!

Every day after school, I’d walk up those stairs and get ambushed by the smell of freshly baked bread. It wasn’t just bread, it was an aroma-based kidnapping. You’d sniff once and forget your name. You’d sniff twice and start hearing church bells.

But there was a trick.

If you didn’t make it to the bakery within an hour of that smell hitting the hallway, forget it. The bread would be gone. Vanished. Sold out like concert tickets! Meanwhile, other stores nearby had shelves stacked with factory-made loaves neatly sealed. Fancy logos. Packaging so glossy it could double as a mirror.

But none of them stood a chance against the “Ground Floor Bread Queen”.

She had no social media. No website. No loyalty program. Just a handwritten sign taped to the wall:

“No Credit today, come tomorrow.”

And yet, every day, she won. She wasn’t just baking bread; she was baking data into her business. She knew the exact hour her customers would come sniffing. She knew how many loaves to make and when. She even knew to hide one extra for that auntie who always showed up yelling, “Did you keep one for me?!”

Tiny insights baked into margins. Purchasing trends. Customer preferences. Inventory levels. Even credit history. The bakers didn’t call it analytics. They simply referred to it as “sense.”

If a tiny bakery with no Wi-Fi could dominate the market using nothing but street sense and patterns, maybe, just maybe, every company is already a data company.

Even the ones that sell bread.

Let’s Get This Out of the Oven

Every Company Is a Data Company

We often picture “data companies” as shiny tech firms, global banks, or someone in a blazer saying “Let’s circle back” during a Zoom call. But here’s the actual truth bomb: if your business sells, serves, delivers, repairs, trains… or, frankly, just exists, you’re already in the data game.

That coffee shop is noting which croissant disappears first? Data. The plumbing service tracks repeat visits and how long each job takes. Data. The NGO counting outreach events and measuring impact? Still data. Even that bread bakery in Lagos. Yes, the one with no website but a mysterious way of always baking just the right number of loaves and is quietly analyzing patterns, customers, and peak-hour behavior. You might not need petabytes stored in a server farm with blinking lights. You just need to stop ignoring the juicy little story hiding in your receipts.

Why Do So Many Businesses Miss the Loaf?

Because we think data needs to be big to matter.

Blame the Silicon Valley crowd for marketing data as this mystical force, locked behind walls, only accessible to chosen “data scientists” with multiple degrees, certificates, and ironic hoodies (Technically, they have a point, but I digress).

In reality? Data doesn’t need to be complicated. It needs to be used.

• The “Ground Floor Bread Queen”. tracked her regulars. You call that a CRM.

• She adjusted the supply based on daily demand. That’s predictive inventory.

• She priced buns differently during specific periods. Congratulations, that’s dynamic pricing.

And when businesses ignore their small but mighty data points? They end up making decisions based on ego, assumptions, or what the CEO's… cousin’s… brother’s …auntie "feels" is best.

You Already Have the Ingredients

You don’t need to become a data company. You already are. The question is, are you acting like one?

Here’s a recipe:

Find Your Notebook: Your logs. Your spreadsheets. That WhatsApp chat where a client always says, “Same order.” These are data sources. Treat them with reverence. Dig into what you already have. That “messy” notebook might be holding a decade’s worth of purchasing trends, customer loyalty signals, and insight into your busiest days. Dust it off. Study it.

Bake Insight into the Routine: Data doesn’t magically help you just by existing. You have to use it daily, weekly, and religiously. Make trend reviews as normal as Monday standups. Ask: What sold the most last week? What slowed down? Why did we get so many returns on Tuesday? Bring frontline staff into the loop; they are human dashboards, constantly observing micro-trends that no Excel file will catch.

Invest in Tools, But Also Culture: A dashboard without people who ask “Why did this spike?” is just a screensaver. Build curiosity, not just charts. Yes, go ahead and get that shiny new dashboard. But also teach people to care about what’s on it. Turn your meetings into mini-investigations. When everyone’s excited to solve the “data whodunnit,” you’ll start seeing insights you can act on.

Train the Raisins Out of Your Team: You don’t need Python experts (maybe you do, I digress once again…last one… I promise). You need employees who ask better questions. Teach them to spot patterns. Encourage weird observations. That’s where insights live.

Automate the Boring Bits: If it’s repetitive and it’s written down, it’s ripe for automation. Scheduling, inventory updates, and even customer follow-ups build small bots. Free up brain space. Use tools that work for you, not the ones that sound impressive in meetings. Free your team from data admin jail. The goal? More brainpower for thinking, less time spent copying and pasting like it's still 2007.

Don’t Call It Digital Transformation. Call It Common Sense.

As I sit on a quiet Sunday, biting into freshly baked bread from the bakery down my street, my failed attempt to recreate that childhood bakery magic, I’m hit with a realization: every company is a data company.

Not just the ones with dashboards and developers. Even the ones with flour-dusted aprons and handwritten signs.

The difference isn’t in having data. It’s in knowing what to do with it. That’s where digital transformation comes in, not as a buzzword, but as a bridge. A bridge that turns messy receipts, scattered spreadsheets, and instinctive decisions into real-time insight, smarter action, and actual growth.

You don’t need to become a tech company overnight. But you do need to stop treating your data like background noise. Transform it. Make it speak. Let it drive you. Because in business, just like in baking, the magic isn’t in the flour. It’s in how you mix, measure, and make meaning from it.

• Start with what you’ve got.

• Ask better questions.

• Digitize the dough.

And remember: the future belongs to those who stop guessing and start baking with data.

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