Reasons Why Your Organization Needs A Data Strategy
If you are planning your first data project, whether it’s a Big data, Data Science, Analytics, or maybe business intelligence, you need data to help you come up with a plan. Data can be used to decide and build products that can help increase your profits, reduce the costs or risks. However, it needs a lot of work to achieve the end result.
Building your analytics team and running data projects would take time and would also cost a lot. Some businesses would hire a data scientist to do the job. So if you and your team are into this, you would need a plan. This plan is called “data strategy.”
What is a Data Strategy?
A data strategy is a blueprint for your data’s efforts. It will give you instructions on what to do, and how to do it depending on your business model, the current state of your business, goals and your concerns. This also identifies the “purpose”; why your company will use data analysis, and how to do it.
- The “Purpose”.
With a data strategy, you know what to expect and when it’s gonna happen. And if you have it, there’s a lesser chance of costly mistakes like technical problems, staffing issues, and legal or PR problems. Staffing is important since businesses know how difficult it is to hire a data scientist. Planning is essential for a project, and planning ahead will make better end results.
- How to Do it?
So how will you use the data in your company? Identifying how to put the plan into action should be relevant to your goals, then line up the list of the projects that you want to execute. If you don’t think you have the necessary data expertise, then it is best that you get someone to help and guide you, a data scientist.
But if you can do it, then here’s how:
- Explore your business model. You need to identify what you want your company to achieve. Your goals are important. Once you have identified your goal, you would know where to start and how your data analysis can improve your business and help you reach your goals.
- Determine the data you need to make it happen. Determine if you already have it, or if you need to get it from a third party provider. You can also check your IT infrastructure since they can give you some of the data that your company does not actively collect, which you will be needing right now.
- Decide which data NOT to collect. If you already have in-house data, assess it so you will understand whether you will be needing it or not. Determine if the data collected is suitable for your “purpose”.
You will always need a plan. Formulating the data strategy on your own is great, but if you can hire a data scientist who is an expert on this, then it is better. Think it through before you dive in. just remember to develop a solid data strategy for the improvement of your success rate in your data efforts.