Your Business Can Get a Lot of Use from Data

Businesses can now capture and use more data to help them run an efficient business than ever before. That’s not to say a lot of businesses actually do. In this month’s newsletter, we thought we’d discuss the use of data and how it can be used to improve your business.

What Is This Data?

Understanding your business better is possible through data, but first you should understand what kind of information we are talking about. Data can be broken down into the following four categories:

• Personal Data - Data that defines the relationships you have with people is personal data. This typically includes personally identifiable information (PII), the devices used to access your systems, IP addresses and other identifying information. 
• Engagement Data - One of the best ways to identify people’s needs is how they interact with your business. This is what is called engagement data. This includes prospect interactions with marketing and advertising on any platform you conduct these strategies..
• Behavioral Data - Understanding behaviors will help you better understand your customer. Data such as purchase histories or how users interact when they are on a company website will tell you much about what their interest is with your business. 
• Attitudinal Data - Getting feedback from your prospects and customers can make a big difference in the way that you go about doing things. When people fill out forms, give reviews, and the like it can give you the information you need to make strategic changes to your overall offering. 

How Does a Business Use Data?

There are a lot of ways that the data your business collects can be useful. Here are a few examples:

Better Understanding Customers

Businesses that don’t understand how their customers think, will have a much tougher time selling their products and making the adjustments needed to be a successful company. It all starts with identifying the profile of your business’ typical customer, what they are looking for from your business, and how you can best fulfill that demand to bring a successful resolution to their needs. 

Data Helps You Measure Employee Performance

In order to be profitable you need your employees to be productive. Using data collected in the course of doing business, you can identify where your business is strongest and where it is weakest and what employees cause those superlative or detrimental situations. That’s not to say that you get a complete story about your employees’ performance by looking at the underlying data, but you will be able to structure your operations in a way that will be the most efficient and produce the most by understanding how your employees perform. 

Data Allows You to Shift Strategies Quicker

A lot of running a business is managing costs. By collecting and using operational data to your advantage you can more effectively identify places where your business is being inefficient with capital and work to change strategies to confront that spending. Businesses that don’t actively use the data at their disposal will take far longer to make adjustments, and over time that can be extremely costly for a business on several fronts. 

Washington Works Can Help Your Business Be Smarter

The IT professionals at Washington Works can help your business better utilize the data your company creates. If you want to have a conversation about how your business can start doing a better job using the resources at its disposal to build more efficiency, give us a call today at 301-571-5040.