Transform Data from a Liability Into an Asset

While data might be the new currency, your own business’ data might 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 essentially 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 company’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 improve 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 White Mountain IT Services to help you make it happen. Learn more by calling us today at (603) 889-0800.

White Mountain IT

Related Posts

These IT Threats Can Ruin Your Business

These IT Threats Can Ruin Your Business

Technology is a major part of today’s business. It’s fair to say anyone that works in business today is at least semi-proficient with the technology needed to complete their tasks. Unfortunately, for many people, however, the fact that their business requires complicated technology is problematic. This is because at any given moment there are people looking to undermine their job, seeking access t...
Keep a Human in the Loop

Keep a Human in the Loop

There are two types of digital transformation. There’s the kind that streamlines a business into a powerhouse, and there’s the kind that turns into a ghost ship; perfectly automated, technically efficient, and completely devoid of life. Right now, we are witnessing a massive shift in the way people do things. While your competitors are busy bragging about replacing their support staff with agentic...
Tech Makes Businesses Better in Many (Sometimes Surprising) Ways

Tech Makes Businesses Better in Many (Sometimes Surprising) Ways

There aren’t many successful businesses left that haven’t embraced technology in some ways. Even businesses that took a while to integrate it, like restaurants, are more often than not going to have some type of online ordering or point-of-sale system. Let’s take a look at some of the ways technology helps businesses advance. Better Options for Automation Technology gives businesses many tools...
From “Surviving” IT to Opening New Revenue Streams

From “Surviving” IT to Opening New Revenue Streams

Do you look at your technology as a cost center to be managed, or as a springboard for new revenue? If you’ve been following us for a while, you know we like to think of it as the latter. Small businesses spend much of their IT budget just to keep the lights on, stuck in an endless cycle of “surviving” rather than “thriving.” But with a virtual CIO, or vCIO, your business can reframe the conversat...