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What is a data model and why should small businesses care?
A data model is the structured design of your data: which tables exist, what they contain and how they relate. Small businesses should care because a clear model makes reports faster to build, consistent across users and easier to maintain than patchwork spreadsheets.
Without a model, each report author joins raw exports their own way, so results differ and changes break things.
With a model:
- Business concepts like customer, product and order have one definition.
- Relationships between tables are explicit.
- New data sources are added in a consistent pattern.
- Dashboards can be rebuilt on a different tool without redoing the logic.
It does not need to be elaborate. A simple, documented model is far better than none.
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