Are you considering a data organization tool for your business? It is critical to check out all the pros and cons before committing to something like that. But before you do, here is a little bit about how it works.
How It Works
No matter what industry you are in or how big your company is, you deal with lots of data every single day. Within the different software that each department uses lies crucial data that can help inform decisions and better your business. But, how can you organize it efficiently?
Having data dispersed across many different platforms due to data silos can be a hassle. This is why you need a data organization system to ensure that all of your data ends up in the same place. This system effectively extracts your data from multiple sources, stores it in a centralized data warehouse, cleans and organizes it, and allows you to quickly and easily analyze it.
Like anything else, there are pros and cons to implementing this kind of system. Here is a list of a few.
Pros
The pros of having a solid data organization system include productivity, fraud detection, informed decision-making, cost reduction, weakness discovery, innovation, and, of course, organization.
Company Wide Increase in Productivity
Having easy access to all of your company’s data can increase company-wide productivity in many ways. On an average day, any department could request data from your data analysts to be sent to them for a multitude of reasons.
With data organization tools, these departments will already have access to the data they need. This frees your analysts to worry about more pressing things and gets your departments their data instantaneously.
Detection of Fraud
Fraud detection is always something that any business should be looking to improve. Especially if you are a financial or merchant-based business. This type of tool uses machine learning to detect when something out of the ordinary occurs. This protects credit card information, identification, and account information.
Provide Better Informed Decisions
Every business is trying to become more data-driven. Why wouldn’t you? Having the ability to analyze your own data, learn from it, and take steps to improve is no doubt the best way to see real growth in your business. Having a data organization tool makes data-driven decision-making not only possible but simple and easy.
Overall Cost Reduction
With data-driven decision-making will come a domino effect of other benefits. Among these is cost reduction. You will be able to analyze the data of every aspect of your business and learn the best way to operate it. Operating every department in the best way possible will ultimately cut costs and save you a lot of headaches.
Discover Weaknesses
There are several different ways to do everything in business. So, how do you know you are doing it the best way? If you do not utilize data organization, you probably cannot know if you are doing it the best way or not. This tool allows you and your employees to easily discover weaknesses in your operation and, most of the time, understand how to improve them.
Spark Innovation
On top of discovering weaknesses that could be holding you back, data organization can free up your employees. Giving them the brainpower to focus more on the next big thing. This could lead to industry-changing innovations happening under your business roof, giving you the edge on your competitor that you have been searching for.
Organization/Get Rid of Data Silos
Last but not least, the obvious one. Data organization tools organize your data. This means they get rid of annoying data silos that can really take up the time and energy of your employees. All of the benefits above are simply an effect that organized data causes, allowing your business to run smoother than ever before.
Cons
If you are planning to build one of these systems in-house, there are some cons you may come across. Just like any other software integration, it can be difficult to start, expensive, and something could go wrong.
It Can Be Difficult to Start
Starting something like this takes a skilled team who truly knows the ins and outs of all the software your business uses. This will ultimately take all of your company’s data engineers and some outside help to get up and running. So, if you are a smaller business, building one may not be an option for you.
It Can Get Expensive
Not only will it take a large team of highly paid engineers. It will take that team quite a while to build it up. So, needless to say, it can become quite expensive to build it in-house.
It Can Go Wrong
This type of tool has many moving parts. So, once it has been built, there is plenty that could go wrong. This means you will have to have a dedicated team constantly checking it and updating it.
Outsource
The good news is that you do not have to build it in-house. You can easily outsource a data organization tool so that you can start reaping its benefits today. This is especially great for smaller companies.
The Bottom Line
Just like any other type of way of doing business, there are plenty of pros and cons to implementing data organization. However, in most situations, it significantly helps improve your company. So, what are you waiting for? Get started with it today!
