As we get ready to turn the page on another year, what steps are you taking to set your business up for success? Your data is central to your business and having the right analytics in place to capture and interpret this data is critical. To help you prepare, we compiled a list of questions you can be thinking about as you gear up for a more successful 2021!
Outdated data leads to high opportunity costs
Most analytics requires experts to spend time cleaning, querying, coding and modeling before answers are produced. This process is time-consuming and inefficient.
Ask yourself: Are you running on old data and analytics to make real-time decisions? How long does it take your team to produce the data you need to make those big, business-growth decisions? Weeks? Months?
When you have real-time data analytics in place, you can confidently make real-time decisions that help you steer your business and maintain a competitive edge in your field.
If you want to learn more about the value of real-time analytics, we suggest this link!
Untapped data is a loss for any business
Depending on your method for collecting data, it’s possible that not all data is able to be analyzed. Some data-collection methods only allow for numerical data and leave out qualitative data.
Ask yourself: Is the data you’re collecting across your business as in-depth as you’d like? Are you getting a complete and comprehensive look at how your business is running enterprise-wide based on the data you’re receiving? You might have access to the “numbers” but do your analytics take into consideration the qualitative data?
Being able to capture and interpret qualitative data is just as important as being able to capture and interpret quantitative data. Qualitative data gives you insight into many aspects of your business such as customer opinions, employee morale and brand strength.
Take a deeper dive into the importance of qualitative data in the decision-making process and read more here!
Data accessibility can be a roadblock for employees
Most tools require analysts to have significant expertise in data science to get the answers they are looking for from their data.
Ask yourself: How much of your business’ data is accessible to you and your team? How easy is it to access? Do you need to hire outside analysts just to make sense of the data you pull for your business? Does your current tool require significant training just to access and analyze the data?
Being able to readily analyze data without extensive training will drive adoption rates by your employees. A 2017 study reported that BI and analytics adoption rates were only 30%. The less user-friendly the platform, the less likely you are to receive buy-in from your team.
Conversely, when data is accessible, business outcomes are vastly improved. Accessible data allows employees to gather information without relying on IT specialists, increases supply chain efficiency, gives you the ability to personalize the user experience and increases customer satisfaction.
Learn more about the importance of data accessibility here!
There’s probably room to improve your time-to-value ratio
From the moment you install software to analyze data to the moment you gather data for interpretation, many businesses lose precious time.
Ask yourself: How much time does your team spend collecting and tracking data and analytics on your business and operations? Are you trying to collect enterprise-wide data from multiple sources and databases? How much time are you spending trying to make sense of this data once it is finally collected?
A high time-to-value ratio is a tremendous cost savings from traditional paper methods, it translates into a higher quality end product and it allows for real-time decision making. Ultimately, the quicker the turnaround from data input to data retrieval and interpretation, the more productive and competitive your business will be.
Want to know more? Check out this article!
Is your business ready to begin meeting critical objectives with technical solutions from SCS? Contact us to learn more about how our services and solutions can help you achieve your goals.
