How to Transform Data from a Liability Into an Asset

While data might be the new currency, your own business’ data may be a bit too messy to make full use of. You might be paying to store it and protect it, but you’re not doing as much with your data as you’d like. Here’s how businesses find themselves with these “data graveyards” and why it basically functions like a debt rather than an asset.

Examining the Data Graveyard

If you find your data has little use, chances are it’s because of the following reasons:

• Data silos: Your organization’s data is probably siloed in multiple different locations; you might have sales data in your CRM, or your accounting data in your QuickBooks, but they don’t necessarily connect or speak to each other in a productive way.
• Dirty data: Your data could be corrupted by small errors like typos, duplicate entries, and missing fields, rendering it worthless. If you try to analyze data like this, you won’t get very far.
• No clear questions: Businesses will collect data without really knowing why or what they hope to glean from it. Unless you have a question or a need for the data, it’s not particularly useful.

How to Ask the Right Questions

If you want to make the most of your data, you can start by asking yourself some simple questions. This will transform your data from a liability into an asset. Consider the following:

• Who are our most profitable customers (not just the biggest)?
• What are our top three most common customer complaints?
• Which marketing efforts brought in our highest-value clients?
• What is the average time between a customer's first and second purchase?

Once you have these answers, you can start to focus on getting value out of your data, value that can enhance your operations and your bottom line.

Implement the Right Tools

Now that you have questions, you can start thinking about tools that will help you reach the answers:

• Unification and cleaning: First, you’ll want to free up your silos and clean up your data to ensure that your critical systems can access all relevant information in one centralized location.
• Business intelligence dashboards: Next, you’ll need a simple visual dashboard that can track key metrics in real time.
• Artificial intelligence and futurecasting: Finally, you can project into the future to identify trends and make better predictions.

Make Better Use of Your Data

Look, if you’re not making the most out of your data, it’s time to change that… and you don’t have to do it alone—you can rely on Macro Systems to help you make it happen. Learn more by calling us today at 703-359-9211.