How businesses can stop wasting data – and start acting on it
By Tony Grout, Chief Product Officer at Showpad
It’s likely your organisation has access to plenty of meaningful analytics that can provide critical insights into your business, customers and competitors. But do you apply your findings to make insight-driven decisions?
When you don’t act on your data, you waste resources, miss revenue opportunities and decrease profitability. Yet many businesses continue to let data sit idly, without taking action, meaning that nearly two thirds (68%) of data is never used. And despite nearly all employees (87%) recognising that data is valuable, few are using it to inform decision-making.
What does actionable data mean? Data that is accurate, timely, relevant, contextualised, and user-friendly can be used to drive insights, so let’s unearth what roadblocks may be preventing you from unlocking its full potential.
Why data is not actionable
Poor data quality. You can’t act on bad data — or at least you shouldn’t. If you base your actions on data that is inaccurate or outdated, you’re going to lead your organisation astray. Check your reports for accuracy and timeliness. If you find inconsistencies or outdated data, you need to improve your data quality before you can act on it.
It’s irrelevant to business goals. To generate actionable data, you need to create a clear connection between the data you’re collecting and the objectives your organisation is working towards.
When it comes to data, context is everything. Without it, you may look at data in a vacuum.
A stat alone isn’t useful without benchmarks or additional information to understand what it means. To act on your data, you need to use benchmarks and look at it in context to see the bigger picture.
User-friendly formatting is also key, and your data should be presented in a way that is understandable and easily digestible.
Many sellers and marketers lack the technical skills and resources needed to effectively use data to inform their decisions. In fact, over two thirds (69%) of business leaders say a lack of data skills stops employees from using data effectively in decision-making. The result? Data ends up being used incorrectly, or not at all. Three quarters (74%) of employees report feeling overwhelmed or unhappy when working with data and 36% of surveyed employees state that they will find an alternative method to complete a task without using data.
Data needs to be human-first, where insights, meaning, and answers from the data are easily understood and can be applied in decision-making by marketing, enablement and sales professionals.
Stop wasting data, and start acting on it
According to McKinsey, between 30-40% of the reports that businesses generate daily add little to no value. Some are duplicative, and others go unused, with the result that considerable resources are wasted. Take a close look at your reports to understand what your data is missing – whether it lacks quality, relevance, context, simplicity or all of the above. Once your data is actionable you can unlock its full potential to make informed decisions that drive growth for your business.
