Data is rapidly becoming a big word for the world. It is a holy grail for the enterprise society that continuously aims for success. Data is a significant asset for all existent companies. Forget the big sized companies, even mid-level companies or companies with less than 50 employees, there is a need for a strict way to handle the internal data efficiently. Managing data not only boosts the growth of a company, but it also enables smaller companies to strive for more and stand head to head with the bigshots in their industry. Yes! There is a reason why companies like Ecrawl, Amazon, and Google made it big in this world after introducing crispy cool data management and Big Data techniques.
According to a BARC research report, businesses surveyed that the use of big data for their internal operations saw a profit increase of 8% and a 10% reduction in their overall cost. In fact, your favorite retail website Amazon uses big data to figure out what exactly to put in as ads for you, so you click on the recommendations. How many times were you eyeing on that cool gadget that Amazon recommends on your screen?
Even if your company is a mid-level sized company, with proper data management and data analytics, it can plan a big future.
But how exactly can a medium sized business manage data?
It is said, “Data management = Accurate analytics = Business growth.” We read that in the Digital List Mag and can vouch to it. Proper data coordination, analytics, integration, and access can enhance sales effectiveness and customer satisfaction. This does not necessarily involve data scientists and expensive hardware’s.
Don’t be blinded with all management tools available online. It is first expected of you to understand the need to choose the best fit for your organization. While you might be knowledgeable about the various data management practices that have sifted their way into the present time, you need to know how to step up the data management game just like the other successful SMB’s around you!
Significant Steps towards Managing Data in a Medium Sized Business
1. Data Profiling, Data Categorizing and Metadata Management
While preparing to use any data management tools, the thing to first keep in mind is taking stock of the existing data. It is good to explore and generate knowledge regarding the information and data available before taking another step. It is essential that you, as a business, know the gaps that are to be filled.
The next step in this step involved creating a data library that will categorize the data and organize it in a repository. This will later be helpful for the consumers of the data (employees) to have a better understanding of who and how the data is moved, accessed and used. The data available can be categorized in a database or in the form of excel data. This will establish a strict management mechanism and will do the initial data quality control for further use.
2. Continuously enhancing data quality for all data domains.
If you are the one who is handling the data analytics, the first concern for you should be improving the data quality. This improvement in data quality enhances the exchange of data between the different sectors; product, customer, HR, and supplier. By transforming, standardizing and polishing/ cleansing the data, your business will become more prone to better results and decisions. This also includes duplicate texts and checking the quality of the databases created.
3. Ensuring the security of the master data.
Once your data is all in place, there is supposed to be another process that should be a bullet point for all organizations. It is security. An organizational database consists of a lot of sensitive data and information. Such information is lost can result in unauthorized access and manipulation. Such a situation can be controlled by performing regular security drills and small authorization changes.
Let’s face it; running an SMB without proper data profiling and management makes no sense. With a mindset of introducing data management in the organization (SMB,) one can increase the revenue of the company. Not to miss, a foundation of the business growth is completely built on data consistency. This lets the users trust the data and also helps the business in getting the consumers/ potential customers to give the business a heads up.
The importance of data management is overgrowing. Focus on it! And never forget that it isn’t a one-time project. Data management needs proper maintenance and attention.