Posted by: Infoveave Team
Date: 21 June 2022
Businesses make critical judgments much too frequently based on data that they cannot see or comprehend in its whole. That has the potential to jeopardies business intelligence, which is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage in any data-driven enterprise. Companies must take an active part in managing and securing their data throughout its lifespan if they are to address this issue effectively.
Introduction to data management
Data management is the process of gathering, organizing, describing, storing, conserving, and sharing research-generated data and other artefacts. Companies maintain and manage their data by engaging in various data management activities that we’ll be discussing further in this article.
Data management plans (DMPs) are required by many funding organizations and institutions, and researchers are sometimes expected to share their data through archival means as well.
Below is a more in-depth examination of the process, including its advantages and drawbacks, as well as best practices for ensuring that your firm gets the most out of its business intelligence.
The objective of data management
Data management can be quite tough, especially if you didn’t begin thinking about data management from the outset of your company’s existence, which is the case with most start-ups. You might wind up with a tremendous quantity of data in an unmanageable format because of this.
It’s critical to prioritise the data objectives listed below that every firm should strive to achieve.
- Achieving Data Quality : It is a big problem for businesses today to make sure their data is correct. When talking about high-quality data, there are three things to keep in mind: access, consistency, and relevance. When you achieve data integrity, your data will be the same. But if you can’t get to that data when you need it, it doesn’t do what it was meant to do. Similarly, if your data is consistent and easy to find, but not relevant to your operations or goals, it also loses its quality.
- Integrating Disparate Databases : It’s normal for a company to get data from a lot of different sources, like their CRM and CMS. Therefore, your company might have a hard time getting data from software integration. There is a different database for each of your apps, and they don’t always work well with each other. There are a lot of different ways to integrate things together. You can get a single platform that is your source of truth for accessible, clean, and reliable data now, thanks to Infoveave
- Complying with Ever-Changing Compliance Requirements : Those who work with their customers’ data must do their job very well. As a result, if you don’t follow all the rules that are set up in your area and around the world, you could be in trouble with the law. There’s also the loss of trust from customers. Keep an eye on how your data is being stored and used if you run your own business.
Data management challenges
There are a lot of different things that can be affected by how data is managed, and this can be a big one. Read below to learn about the various data management challenges:
- Security of data : Security of data is a major concern for various companies. When compared to other data-related issues, this is one of the most difficult ones for them to deal with. An organization can’t rely on all of the data it receives from multiple sources to be safe and compatible with administrative rules.
- Shortage of skills : There can be an explicit shortage of skilled data management professionals available, which can make the figure crunching difficult, and slowness in building the insights. Training people for entry-level work could also prove expensive for a company that deals with new technologies. Most of the companies reply to automation which involves Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to develop insights.
Data management best practices
Here are a few things your business should do to make sure that your data is managed the best and most efficiently.
- Build strong file naming and cataloguing conventions : If you want to make use of data, you must be able to locate it quickly and easily. If you can’t control something, you can’t measure it. User- and future-friendly reporting or file systems should be developed—descriptive, standardized file names that are easy to remember and file formats that allow users to search and discover data sets with long-term access in mind should be considered when developing reporting or file systems.
- Carefully consider metadata for data sets : Essentially, metadata is descriptive information about the data you are using. It should contain information about the data’s content, structure, and permissions so it is discoverable for future use. If you don’t have this specific information that is searchable and allows for discoverability, you cannot depend on being able to use your data years down the line.
- Data Storage : If you ever intend to be able to access the data you are creating, storage plans are an essential piece of your process. Find a plan that works for your business for all data backups and preservation methods. A solution that works for a huge enterprise might not be appropriate for a small project’s needs, so think critically about your requirements.
Summary
In your business, data is at the very heart of everything that you do. Data management can help you be more productive, improve customer service, and make your employees’ lives easier. It doesn’t matter if you’re a small business owner or part of a big company.
There isn’t a single data management plan that works for all businesses, but there are a lot of different options for each business to choose from. That’s why you need to know what your company needs, how it works, and what data is in it to find the best solutions for you.
