The World of data has exploded, and this couldn’t be better news for businesses! Long gone are the days where any data you analysed was several days out of date, we are in a 21st century business world where real-time data is available at your fingertips ready and waiting to be manipulated and explored to your hearts content.
Data is an organisations competitive advantage and how you use your data is the key to setting you apart from the competition. What’s more, it’s been proven that data-driven businesses are three times more likely to report significant improvements in decision making.
When you initially move to a data-first approach some businesses may feel daunted by the influx of data, and indeed sometimes having too much data can be as debilitating as having none. That’s why it’s so important to use your data wisely and know what you are doing with it.
This is where a methodical approach comes in. According to a study by The Digital Analytics Association, 40% of data managers spend more than half of their week gathering and processing data; time that could be better spent drawing insights and setting about changes based on the data driven insights to transform the business. Building a methodical approach to data management will help you both save time and get more from your data and involves building plans for collecting, evaluating, and managing your data to properly capitalise on the benefits it brings.
To make this simple we have broken down the data analysis process into six key steps.
First things first, before you do anything else you must establish what you want to achieve by analysing your data. This a crucial first step because it helps ensure the data you are collecting is the right kind of data for your end goals and stops you collecting irrelevant data or wasting time analysing data which isn’t going to give you the information you’re after.
Consider you are a retailer experiencing a decline in sales. Some potential goals might be as follows:
With these goals you would be asking the following questions when analysing data:
Once you have established what you’re hoping to achieve you can set about deciding how to measure your goals and what data you need to collect. For sales related goals such as those above, you will need to track metrics such as revenue, sales, and average order value.
Data can be collected from internal and external sources and can be qualitive (non-numerical data i.e. customer feedback and competitor analysis) and quantitative (numerical i.e. revenue and sales figures) but for best results we recommend collecting both.
The accuracy of your data can have a significant impact on your findings so an essential step is cleaning your data and ensuring consistency. You may be questioning how you clean data but it sounds more complicated than it is and simply involves some of the following:
Now we get to the part where we can get stuck into the data and identify trends, correlations and any abnormalities which may help you answer the goals you set earlier on in the process.
Equipping yourself with tools that will help you get more from your data is a great idea such as the new Data Connector coming soon to Opera 3 SE. Tools that allow you to extract data from your business solution to apps such as Power BI, Sharepoint and Microsoft Excel will enable you to crunch the numbers to a greater depth, produce user-friendly charts and graphs and let you share data easily and quickly with the rest of your business.
Businesses have gone from having very little real-time data to having vast amounts at the click of a button and this is transforming decision making. However, there can of course be too much of a good thing and the same can be said for data – you can be at risk of having too much data and not know what to do with it. A methodical approach to your data-first business is essential for businesses to ensure they are only collecting the data valuable to their business to avoid wasting time collecting and analysing data which is not relevant. Steps involve setting clearly defined goals and determining what data to collect and how to collect it. When it comes to analysis there are many tools available that can help you manipulate your data to a much greater depth to identify trends easily and quickly, and share among your business for actionable results far sooner.
For more information about reporting tools available from us here at Pegasus, or to learn more about our new Data Connector application coming soon to Opera 3 SE then please contact us today.
Posted On: June 13, 2024
