You may have reached the stage in your business where the time for some professional expertise in working with your data is required.
The huge amounts of data being gathered by even the smallest business means highly valuable information that can help increase profits and productivity is waiting to be accessed properly and made use of to provide many business benefits including:
- Business Intelligence – for forward planning and fast decision making.
- Marketing – implementing marketing campaigns based on accurate customer profiling and knowledge of your marketplace.
- Automation – the potential to automate and streamline mundane, repetitive and time- consuming tasks.
- Tackle fraud – minimise fraudulent activities in your business.
- Improve security – strengthen security measures.
Many businesses don’t have the in-house expertise or resources to make the most of their data, let alone plan and implement a coherent data strategy, so partnering up with an experienced professional data analytics consultancy is key – as is working with the right one.
The Importance of Data Strategy
A companywide coherent data strategy is vital to make the most of your data in terms of the following:
- Your aims – what do you want to gain from your data? Improved strategic planning? Automation of tasks? Improved customer profiling?
- Coherence – gathering and handling data in a standardised way throughout your business.
- Types of data – what data do you require and where will it come from?
- Data storage and organising – what data storage and organisational methods will you adopt?
Your ideal data analytics consultancy partner
The areas to cover when considering who your data analytics consultancy professional should be:
- Listening – sounds obvious, but are they listening properly and encouraging you to detail your business aims and objectives? It’s only through knowing your basic business goals that a data analytics consultancy can help you plan and implement a data strategy.
- Data analytics customised to your requirements – can they provide a fully bespoke service based on your aims and objectives? Chances are you may need certain elements of data analytics but possibly not the entire spectrum. Can a cost-effective service be tailored to you and scaled up as you grow?
- Ongoing relationship – ideally, you’ll be looking for a professional data analytics consultancy to work with for the long haul who are agile enough to swiftly adjust their service based on your possible changing requirements over time. Are they set up to provide ongoing support as opposed to a one-off analytics project?
- Creative thinking – is your proposed data analytics professional prepared to offer creative ideas and suggestions to help plan, implement and enhance your data strategy? You don’t just want ‘order takers’ – you want to benefit from a consultancy’s creativity based on specialised experience.
- Security and trust – clearly you need to be able to trust your data analytics consultancy partner as they’re working in what is a sensitive area of your business, so check their security protocols and use some old fashioned ‘gut instinct’ to judge if they’re a business partner you could rely on.
- Reputation – important for establishing security and trust, so find out if they have a good reputation.
Take your time deciding
Working with a data analytics consultancy professional you’re in harmony with and can rely on to help implement your data strategy is a key business decision to get right, so take the time necessary to find the right people.
True professionals will understand – indeed, they should be keen to talk at length to you too so as to ensure a mutually beneficial business relationship.