Unlocking the value of your data So, how valuable do you think your data is? My guess is it’s difficult to say, unless you’ve already defined a data strategy, you know what you want from it and are measuring what it’s doing for you.
In 2006, Humby coined the phrase
piece of software, tend to find the
indicators or conversion rates. You
“Data is the new oil”. He went on to
in-built reporting tools inadequate
need to dig deeper.
say that, “like oil, data is valuable, but if
for their needs (often returning to
unrefined it cannot really be used.”
spreadsheets to find the solution). For
There are often two problems to be resolved in small businesses. One is that, to help decision-making, business owners need to be able
example: You click on “sales report” and see a nice chart that gives you the total sales by salesperson. Most of us at this point will want
So, what can you do to extract as much value as possible from your data? Here’s what I’ve learnt from my earlier lives as a Merchandise Manager and a Business Insights Manager:
to cut through the data-noise to
to know why one person is doing so
get to the critical insights. Two:
much better than another. But the
Success factors
businesses that have moved on from
report doesn’t tell you that. Nor does
The number one consideration for
spreadsheets to an off-the-shelf
it go into any detail about the lead
me has always been to start with the
6 | Issue 3 – Operations and Resources
