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They say that Data is the new currency in today’s fast and ever evolving digital economy — the economics behind data is broken. Volume of Data continues to increase with each passing year, while the quantity of data workers triples the amount. Yet IT budgets still stay flat and minimum — making it almost impossible to go with the flow of growing business needs and demand for processing of data and analytics.
In parallel, it’s becoming highly common for different business departments to come up with their own set of tools to gather and integrate data. The quantity of data that businesses are generating these days has no example. Businesses can derive considerable perks from big data analysis.
Why Data Matters to Businesses
At times there is a division between IT requirements and business requirements which results in a lack of collaboration because both happen to use different processes and tools for collecting, preparing and analyzing the data. This confusion leads to businesses spending too much time and effort in putting the data to work.
Today, data has become a reliable source of information. And this is why business intelligence (BI) has surfaced as an important element to the process that involves decision making.
The Business Intelligence provides insights that are based on numbers. A huge number of companies are acknowledging its value. In the year 2016 around 73 percent of businesses increased their analytics capabilities.
To become data oriented doesn’t really need a dedicated pool of team to focus solely on Business Intelligence procedures. The increase of do it yourself, modern tools and BI has made analytics simpler to implement and integrate into your ways of working.
How Businesses Improve Access to Insights
To make the most out of data, the businesses must ensure that they are taking necessary measures to keep up and replace old, out dated data with the updated and accurate one.
With data helping every aspect of business functions – from strategy to marketing – making sure that data is of top-notch high quality for analysis is of utmost importance. Creating a platform that’s easily adaptable and convertible to change from the start is fundamental to this.
Often organizations emphasize more on the selection of database, cloud vendor, Hadoop vendor, while these specific selections have the tendency to lock the data into a new silo. The businesses should spend a considerable amount of their budget in data infrastructure. It’s advisable to spend cloud and build a live for your data.
Big data streaming technologies, that are more cloud-based, plays an important role in helping businesses store their data wisely. With this technology, organizations can kick start in minutes, simplify data integration process and ingest large volumes of data significantly.
Potential Pitfalls to Avoid
There are times when specialized data analysts know they are fighting and struggling to win a lost battle.
- If it is taking forever to access the distributed data, the specialists may need to reassess their approach to figure out whether getting hold of this data for analysis is indispensable or not
- Organizations must ensure they are not storing existing data for too long. Currently, about 55% of an organization’s data is not easily accessible which means that data analysts spends half of their time in just gathering and processing the data
- Businesses must encourage a policy where data is used in a responsible fashion rather than to just holding it
- Businesses need to switch from huge data to smart data which means creating a predictable, repetitive and sustainable process for transforming raw, unstructured data into critical insight for the business
Data Overload — Managing it Wisely
You want to raise the bar when using data? Here are some ways to deal with your data wisely.
Acquire Data Skills
At times some organizations get caught up due to the implementation of new efforts. They sometimes ignore the basic requirements of developing new skills that could be helpful in applying the best practices needed by the effort.
This process helps in developing data skills in your team even if the business intelligence is self-service and are designed and implemented for use by those who are non-specialists.
In fact, data enthusiast companies take into consideration the analytical skills as an essential skill to their staff’s capabilities. Besides analysis, team members also need to communicate their insights and general observations.
Ask for Professional Help
Hiring data specialists for your company is not a bad idea too. These specialists help in identifying potential errors and biases and contextualize reports. It is not necessary that they be a permanent part of your regular dedicated. They can only be under business and marketing development functions.
Invest in A Robust BI Service
Lately, only large organizations had access to business intelligence service. Data based projects needed substantial finances in software, infrastructure, and people. With increase in BI services and cloud-based analytics, even small to medium sized enterprises are now data-driven.
Many online startups have already benefitted from services like Google Analytics, that allows them to track visitor activity and site performance. Those interested in consolidation of business data from different sources do pretty well looking into end-to-end service providers such as CoolaData — a business intelligence and behavioral analytics platform for digital businesses.
Focus On the Information at Hand
Shift your focus on creating an information based infrastructure that can help you in optimizing the ability of your company to locate, consume and access critical business information. Some key technologies include cloud computing, virtualization and applications and mobile devices. You must not focus on the device or data center.
Improve Your Understanding
You must know how to identify and recognize the information. Many companies tend to ignore basic knowledge like how important the data is, who owns specific information, or even whether it is business or personal in nature.
You need clear understanding to classify and map data to identify its true value. Once you ace this art, you can very conveniently prioritize protection, security and management of data in a better way.
Be Efficient
Use archiving and deduplication technologies to save and protect more data while storing less. Only store data that is more relevant to you. Use latest tools to filter out access information. Keep data that is necessary.
Set Consistent Policies
Consistency of information policies is must as it helps wherever the information is residing, whether in virtual, cloud or physical environments. This consistency unifies information classification, controls access and distribution.
It also automates information retention and automates deletion and speeds the process of eDiscovery.
Stay Agile
For future information needs, you must plan ahead of time. This can be done by implementing a reasonably flexible infrastructure that supports continued growth process. You can also resort to using quiz makers to engage with your customers and draw conclusions about their intimate impulses. This helps generate leads for a business.
Transforming your company to become data-driven can sometimes be challenging but when you realize the benefits, it will be worth the effort. Handling data wisely promotes a free flow of information, transparency, and even better decision making. It helps control biases and has the ability to put everyone on a same wavelength. When everyone is on the same page, the organization gets in a better position to achieve its goals.
Author Bio:
Sohail Rupani is a senior SEO strategist at PNC Digital, a digital marketing agency based in Orlando. He specializes in SEO and SEM techniques. He is passionate about technology and loves to analyze the tech industry in his spare time and stay in touch with the latest happenings. He also writes technical articles about SEO and digital marketing. Follow @sohailrupani for more updates.
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