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Data and Your Business

Echo
Written By Echo
Now touted as “the new oil,” data is the face of the technological revolution. 
As markets continue to become saturated and the world evolves through this revolution, 
data has become a vital asset to competitive advantage, changing the way organizations operate across all sectors and industries. The International Institute for Analytics predicted that by 2020 businesses using data would see about $430 billion in productivity benefits over competitors who are not. Indeed, a company’s ability to maintain relevance against its rivals is increasingly being driven by how well it leverages data and applies analytics to make business decisions and curate the customer experience. 

What is Data?

Simply put, data consists of any and all facts, statistics, and informational inputs collected during your operations that can be used to measure or record both internal and external business activities. Businesses of all sizes can collect data. With as little as a website and a social media presence, even a one-person shop can collect data on its customers, user experience, feedback, demographics, and web traffic. This means that even the smallest business can have a data collection mechanism which they use to hone their products and/or services and drive profitability. In effect, every business, regardless of size, now needs to be a data business. However, in today’s information age there is such a vast wealth of data available that companies run the risk of collecting too much. It’s therefore imperative that businesses develop a robust data strategy to guide them in harnessing it.

What Makes a Good Data Strategy?

Smart businesses look to data strategy as a starting point rather than collecting data without
consideration for its use.  A good data strategy is not about what data is readily or potentially
available, but about what your business wants to achieve, and how data can help you get there.
Successful data strategies, therefore, define the key challenges and business-specific questions
and then focus on collecting and analyzing the data that will help you address them. A good data strategy will address a specific business need, help the organisation reach its strategic goals, and generate real value. In order to develop a useful strategy, you must consider certain key elements: what your data needs are, how you will source and gather the data, how that data will be turned into insights, what your technology infrastructure needs are, what competencies and skills you have within your organization, and how you are going to manage the privacy and security issues that come with it. Thankfully, our Echo App cuts out all of this work for you on a key aspect of your business operations – more on that soon.

How Can Data Impact My Business?

The key impact that data has on your business is that it informs and improves your decision-making. According to a study by Bain & Company that looked at more than 400 organisations, companies with advanced data analytics capabilities were five times as likely to make decisions faster than market peers. Customers are important because they drive revenues – without them, businesses amount to nothing. Data plays a huge role in understanding valuable insights about target demographics, customer preferences, and customer experiences. It leads to a better understanding of your customers, generating insights backed up by factual data in lieu of any assumptions you may make about who they are, their preferences, behaviours, and more. If analyzed correctly, companies can leverage these insights to make decisions about finding new customers, increasing customer retention, improving customer service and experience, iterating marketing efforts, tracking social media interaction, and predicting sales trends.

Furthermore, data provides valuable insights into business processes that can help to reduce wasted money and time. For example, bad advertising decisions can be a great waste of company resources. Data on which channels are best to reach target demographics will prevent your organization from investing in a marketing campaign on a platform that your target audience does not engage with. With data showing how different marketing channels are performing, 
however, companies can see which ones offer the greatest return on investment and focus on those, or investigate the performance of other channels and work to improve their performance.
Once the particular insights and ongoing guidance are drawn from the collected and evaluated data are turned into actionable information, the real payoff comes from incorporating them into the day-to-day operations and your efforts to anticipate and address the current and future needs of your customers. Your ultimate goal is to most effectively use the information to enhance your ongoing engagement with your customers, deepen your company’s connection to those customers, improve the consistency of customer experience and retention, thereby growing your share of their spend and maximizing your bottom-line while at the same time, adding actual value for them.

How Do We Help?

Remember when we talked about all the boring and technical-sounding stuff to do with developing
a data strategy?  In order to develop a useful strategy, you must consider what your data needs
are, how you will source and gather the data, how that data will be turned into insights, and what your technology infrastructure needs are, what competencies and skills you have within your organization, and how you are going to manage the privacy and security issues that come with it. Echo has identified a key data need for all businesses and developed a complete mechanism that incorporates all of these key elements for a successful data strategy. We have completely simplified the customer feedback data collection and analytics process, taking on the technology infrastructure, analytical competencies, and security measure necessary so you don’t have to. Check out more on our main page, and register with Echo to start turning your data into value now!

Sources

Desai, Rashi. “How Important Is DATA for Your Business?” Medium, Towards Data Science, 6 Sept. 2019.
“How To Use Data Strategically In Business: 3 Essential Ways.” Bernard Marr.
“The Importance of Data and Information in Business.” DCODE GROUP: Custom Software Development – Melbourne, Australia.
Marr, Bernard. “4 Ways Big Data Will Change Every Business.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 8 Sept. 2015.
Marr, Bernard. “Why Every Business Needs a Data and Analytics Strategy.” Bernard Marr & Co.
Tullman, Howard. “Every Business Is a Data Business.” Inc.com, Inc., 2 Apr. 2019.
Wegener, Rasmus, and Travis Pearson. “Big Data: The Organizational Challenge.” Bain, Bain & Company, 11 Sept. 2013.
“Why Is Data Important for Your Business?” Grow.com, 9 Mar. 2020.
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