The cannabis industry is rapidly changing and evolving.  Some cannabis cultivators are struggling with dropping wholesale prices while manufacturers and retail locations are scrambling to innovate in the face of increased competition.

Every individual cannabis business already has a very powerful toolkit within arm’s reach – their data.  Whether your product is cannabis flower, extract, edibles or anything else, your seed-to-sale, accounting, and operational data can significantly improve your business.  Here are the top three reasons you want to be good friends with your data:

1. Increase Profits

Your company’s profits are the revenues minus the costs, and your data can help you with both.  Whether your selling to other cannabis businesses or directly to patients and consumers, knowing your best products, customer habits, and promotions can drive marketing and sales efforts that increase your overall top line.  For cost reduction, seeing all of the cost drivers at a product & unit level then drilling into specific categories often highlights key areas with room for reducing costs. Focusing on the most profitable products will also decrease costs by selling the products that are the most affordable to create.

2. Improve Efficiency

Your team’s efficiency depends on throughput over time.  Your data can help you identify bottlenecks to reduce wasted time and money.  For cultivators, extractors, and manufacturers, increasing throughput relates to creating more sellable products with fewer resources whereas increasing throughput at dispensaries and retail stores relates to serving more customers and selling more products per customer order. Improvements can come from source materials (such as nutrients for cultivators), processes (such as workflows for extractors), communication (such as better reporting & sourcing for retailers) or collaboration across the team.  The more your data can help you reduce wasted resources, the more success you’ll enjoy with your team and your business.

3. Instill Peace of Mind

Your peace of mind is one of the most important resources in the business.  When you are calm and at peace, you can make more informed, more precise decisions that drive your team forward. Having an intuitive, actionable data toolkit that answers your questions with data-driven analysis can align your team, focus an objective, and create clarity for a path forward.  Seeing your data the way you need to make smart decisions can overcome the stress, frustration, and clashing personalities of poorly informed meetings. Getting key information just in time to make it actionable will save your team time, money, headache, and heartache.  With all the extra time and mind-space you save, you’ll have much more energy and clarity on how to improve and grow.

For all these reasons and more, your data is an incredibly powerful tool to enable your success.

How are you using your data today?  What metrics, reports, or key performance indicators (KPIs) drive your team meetings?  Everyone agrees there is a lot of value in cannabis business data, and we’d love to hear your big wins and challenges with your data culture and solutions.  Shoot us a note at  or schedule a time for a free data consult.