Cannabis: Canna business operate without collecting data?
“Data collection” are cold words. If you’re not collecting data, or concerned about reporting, tracking, monitoring, etc. then these two words really don’t connect or even interest you.
I believe this dangerous. Data collection is intrinsically vital to a business, project, department, study, or in this particular example, industry.
As America watches the cannabis industry build itself, we are watching history unfold. The delicate nature of this “new” industry is critical to regulation, legal practices, state and federal acceptances and more. And as anything new must come complete with documentation, proof, and validation — the only groups that will survive and thrive, are the ones actually collecting data.
The cannabis industry is not unique, it’s just unknown at this time by about 80% of the country. The benchmarks and standards though transcend “drugs” and medicinal use and actually bleed into every industry and facet of an economy — to the point where the studies performed today show an immense presence on countless industries and revenue streams of a legalized state. The data collected is beyond what is performed within the greenhouses and cultivation rooms, and the laboratory is now the destination for a successful and proven product. Everything and everyone that has ever been involved with a plant, strain, or leaf are dutifully inspected to guarantee safety and compliance for consumers.
The data collection process brings to the mind the brilliant maxim, “data is like a bikini — what it reveals is suggestive, but what it conceals is vital.” I feel there isn’t a more fitting and appropriate way to show the parallels of documentation and regulation at the onset of this industry. In order for companies to create safer products for people to use either medicinally or recreationally, they’ll need to collect data for the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Simply collecting data on pesticides, fertilizers, water, lighting won’t guarantee a successful product line — and rightfully so — that’s not the intention. It will, however, validate the company’s practices, mission, and daily efforts to create a true brand, which is where every smart company in today’s saturated market is headed. Your brand is your lifeblood; one unhappy customer or even injured customer can bring with it a firestorm of social media and negative reviews, burning your business down to the studs before you ever even felt it getting warm.
What data collection does is to verify the lifecycle of your business and solidify the measures taken by a grower to create not only a brand presence but a standard, bringing to light the classic adage, “What gets measured, gets managed.”
So how can the lightning-fast cannabis industry continue to prove to America that this industry is the right step? To collect data every single step of the way from seed to strain to sale. This process needs to be easier though fortunately, with iFormBuilder the complexities of agriculture, genetics, food and drug safety and even marketing research can be simplified using the proven iFormBuilder platform. Allowing growers, cultivators, technicians, and executives have real-time insight into what is happening across their crops to show what is happening, and more importantly as evident in the brilliant “bikini model” — what is not happening.
