It’s practically impossible to run a competitive organization without some form of analytics and reporting. Stockpiles of readily available data have become valuable tools to wield in the world of business. Unfortunately, the term “readily available” is muddy at best, and occasionally detrimental, if not dangerous. 

The process of bifurcating micro and macro data, parsing it into syntactic nuggets and allowing team access, has become almost as important as collecting the data itself.   

What’s the point of data if nobody can understand it or use it?  

According to a recent report, 35.37% of businesses say that just preparing data ready for use is the most important part of the business intelligence puzzle. Mounds of data equal time-and-money being spent sifting and sorting, unless, of course, you employ a solution to that problem.   

So, even with the best digital analgesic in place in the form of NOW Privacy, we can sometimes find ourselves asking if this whole “data thing” is worth it.   

Yes, it is. Here’s why.  

1: TRACKING 

When you manage data effectively, you can track pretty much anything in your organization. Since your IAAS is collecting data 24/7, it’s a matter of plugging in those connectors and watching that data collate itself into meaningful insights. 

Every organization is following KPIs, and that filters down to department level, of course, with every department having KPIs of their own. Tracking and measuring your data is about adding weight to key indicators, and ignoring the noise. By doing this, you can see at a glance if you’re moving in the right direction, both at department-level and organizational-level.  

2: DECISIONS

The average person spends 37% of their time making decisions, extrapolate this across a corporate entity and you have major problems. Organizations take far too long to decide the right course of action. You know it and we know it. 

It’s why Blockbuster failed, it’s why Kodak isn’t making mobile phones (an obvious move for a world leader in photography technology). Taking too long to make even the smallest decisions can hobble your efforts, long term. Business intelligence is the amalgamation of data mining, analysis, and visualization. Using data to make fast, precise and more importantly, correct assertions about your future, is probably the biggest lever an organization can pull.   

3: OPTIMIZATION

Did you know that a small group of poorly optimized employees can cost, on average, $500,000 per year? Now imagine that employee as a system within your organization. How much are poorly optimized systems costing you?  

The typical organization draws a ton of operational data on a daily basis, so much so that it might not be glaringly obvious which trends are temporary and which trends need to be acted upon. 

When you truly start to understand the key indicators in the sea of data constantly washing over your board meetings, you understand what parts of your organization are underutilized. Almost all profit-making organizations are pushing for revenue generation. In reality, they should be focusing on revenue leakage due to poorly optimized business practices.   

4: MARKETING 

Similar to point three, organizations across the globe are trying to gain market share and gobble up new customers. By all accounts, learning how to serve your existing customers better is just as important. As we analyze customer data from internal and external sources, we can make our outreach far more successful. 

This goes for new clients and existing ones. Alignment of what clients are asking for, and what we are giving them, is the key here. That goes for our marketing messages, too.  

5: STRATEGY 

Strategic assumptions are the No.1 concern for senior executives right now. Risk is largely an equation, numbers plus experience. Knowing what we know and seeing what we didn’t know in the data. By using NOW Privacy, you can gain powerful insights and, more importantly, accurate insights. Strategic planning is about to become the single most important aspect of what we do going forward. 

With the storm of recession hovering ominously on the horizon, the winners are going to be those who sail into the wind. Your ability to extract decisive insights, quickly make decisions and set sail in the right direction, will hold you in good stead.   

Rapidly changing dynamics in any given market, requires fast, accurate decision-making. Partly this is a boardroom confidence issue, but most of all, it comes down to your business intelligence attitude and knowing — not guessing — what your next move is.  

CONCLUSION 

True data governance and business intelligence is pattern recognition taken to its ultimate conclusion. Omnipresent connectors, drawing insights from multiple sources simultaneously, a dashboard that collates and displays the data you need and only that data. Moving forward, post COVID-19, we must be hyper-aware of changing dynamics. The world as we know it can shut down instantly.   

With so many chess pieces on the board, it can be tempting to simply ignore these issues until it’s too late. Just like Blockbuster, just like Kodak. The key indicators were present long before they fell by the wayside, the patterns were visible.   

Patterns change, plans must change with them.