According to Experian, eight in ten companies are of the view that data is one of their most valuable assets. Even if you own a small business in Canada, you can benefit a lot by optimizing the data of your organization and creating a proper process to use them at work. No matter how small your business is, the data is like the lifeblood which runs through your company. It powers the automated workflows, gives your customers and clients the kind of support they need from time to time, and they allow you to make decisions at the right time. So, when your business data is accurate and reliable, your business sails smoothly. But when duplicates and errors occur, it’s not so pretty for your organization overall.
The annual report by Global Data Management surveyed around 1,100 data practitioners and data-driven companies worldwide. What they found was that businesses are majorly struggling to imbibe meaningful data insights into their everyday business processes. And in order to be able to trust your organizational data and information, there are a few very important things that you can do. What are they? Let’s find out below.
1. Improve Data Collection
The analysis of your big business data will begin with data collection. Here, the most important part is to collect the data and retain them properly. Your business can amass a huge quantity of data in a short period of time. But not all of them are important. So, start by defining the different types of data that are relevant to your business. This will make it easier for you to collate the ones which are important and discard the ones which aren’t.
2. Follow Proper Data Organization
Once you find a strategy to collect all your business data in one place, you will need a great method of storing and managing it all. Careful data organization is necessary for analysis, and it will also enable you to stay in control of the data quality while improving the efficacy of the analysis.
3. Look From Where New Data is Coming From
In any business, unreliable and messy data doesn’t happen just like that. There has to be a source for them. And if you wish to make your business data better and more reliable, always try to gauge the trail from where the data is coming from. If you have a CRM tool for your business, how is the data entering the CRM? Are your employees putting everything manually? Is the manual input of data cluttering your database? Are your team members importing different kinds of data to your system? Once you are able to find this out, you’ll be able to create and maintain more relevant data for your organization.
4. Break Down the Data Silos
Having data silos in your organization could be one of the major reasons behind having unreliable data. This is basically the kind of data that one department has access to but others do not. And the negative effects of data silos could be the poor performance of your organization and less productivity. Also, there will be no to zero transparency in the work culture, lower efficiency, and poor collaboration and trust amongst the team members.
5. Schedule Regular Maintenance
Once you find out the glitches in your business data, it’s time to sort them all out and schedule regular maintenance. This won’t be a one-time job though. You will have to continuously clean up, upkeep, and optimize the data in order to make them relevant for months to come. If you have a dedicated operations manager, ask them to monitor and optimize the data qualities periodically. Basically, data integrity and performance maintenance should be a part of your company’s DNA.
Summing it Up,
Maintaining data quality is a vital aspect of your small business. Hence, business data maintenance should be your top priority. With a robust data maintenance plan in place, you will be able to ensure that all your business data is captured in a proper place and retained to its highest quality.
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