actionable data
Companies today generate huge amounts of data. Many organizations can no longer handle their data needs with simple BI solutions, especially when collecting millions or even billions of rows of data.Big Data Solutionscan help manage this mountain of data, but they are only part of the bigger picture.
For companies dealing with Big Data,turn that data into insightsIt is important. While a business may have access to vast amounts of data, that data isn't very useful until it's analyzed and interpreted.Big-Data-Toolscan help, but they can only go so far. For data to be truly useful, it must be actionable.
Saying that data must be “actionable” means presenting insights in a way that can be easily used to drive business decisions. This means data must be presented in its proper context, accurately, and in a place where the people who need it can see it. Businesses can use this data to make better decisions, whether it's making marketing campaigns more efficient or improving productivity across the organization.
Actionable data is presented in a way that can actually lead to better decisions. It is data that enables companies to act. Not all data is usable; in fact, most are not. The main goal of any BI tool is to transform the raw, unfiltered data it is captured intoactionable data that generates insights.
Actionable data is the end product of a BI tool's processes and procedures. It is important to be accurate, timely and presented in an easy to understand manner. Unlike the raw data that a BI tool connects, actionable data can be used to draw clear conclusions and improve business processes.
Actionable data can help companies make better decisions, create new products and services, develop an effective marketing strategy, identify customer needs, increase sales, reduce expenses, and improve efficiencies. Without actionable data, companies fly blind. The right data can help create competitive advantages for companies that use it properly.
Making data actionable is not a one-off process; Data ranges from raw to actionable.BI-Toolsare doing their best to make the data as actionable as possible, but end users still have some work to do.
How can the data be used?
It's important to know how actionable your data is and why it's actionable or not so you can make changes to how your BI tool works. If the data generated by your BI tool isn't actionable, something needs to change.
For example, if your BI tool generates a report that shows how much you spend on marketing each month but doesn't differentiate between different marketing channels, that's not actionable data. It cannot generate insights or improve decision-making. Something has to change before data can be used to generate insights.
Not all actionable data looks the same. Actionable data takes different forms depending on its purpose and audience. However, there are some guidelines to determine if the data generated by your BI tool is actionable.
Actionable dates are correct.In order to be able to act, the data must be correct. False data should not be used to generate insights for obvious reasons. Often, users have a hard time realizing that the data they are using is wrong and make bad decisions based on it.
BI tools have many different safeguards in place to ensure that the information reaching the end user is correct. These include features like data cleansing, which helps remove outliers, formatting errors, and incorrect data, and data validation, which ensures data is formatted in a way that a BI tool can understand. These tools can often work autonomously, but sometimes require human intervention.
Data systems are operated according to the "garbage in, garbage out" principle. This means if the data you enter into your BI tool is inaccurate, incorrect information will be returned. If you want your BI tool to generate accurate reports, make sure you use accurate information.
Actionable data is accessible.The people who need the data must actually be able to see and use the data. While this may sound easy, in larger organizations it can be a daunting task. We recommend using a cloud-based solution like Domo, which allows employees to access data anytime, anywhere.
It should also be relatively easy to navigate a BI tool to access this data. Many BI tools on the market are complex pieces of software that require technical knowledge to navigate properly. For those who want everyone in their organization to generate insights, an easier-to-understand BI tool like Domo is ideal.
Actionable data is timely.Data should reflect reality as realistically as possible. To uncover insights and help users make accurate decisions, data needs to be fresh. Outdated data is ineffective for solving problems because the situation implied by the data does not accurately reflect the actual situation.
Let's say you use your BI tool to track the number of emails sent by your marketing team. Just looking at the number of emails sent two months ago doesn't give you a good idea of whether they were effective or not. You don't know what happened between those two months, so the data is pretty much useless.
Actionable data is easy to understand.With boards and other thingsData visualization toolsallows data to be presented in a format that is easily understood by non-data experts. However, BI tools often leave the choice of the form of this view to whoever creates the dashboards.
Too often, dashboard creators use data visualizations that aren't appropriate for the type of data they're trying to represent. As a result, the data and its visualization work in a cross-purpose manner. The data is difficult to understand without error of the data.
all whobuild panelsrequires a basic understanding of how data should be represented, visually or through statistics. Without this understanding, the data is not as usable as it could be.
How can I make my data more actionable?
Many companies already have all the tools they need to turn data into actionable insights. They have a robust and useful BI tool, they have the data experts needed to use that tool properly, and their employees are knowledgeable enough to use the data they collect properly.
However, few companies actually use this data to make it actionable. Here are some strategies to make the data your company collects more useful.
contextualize-o.Data is only useful when presented in context. For KPIs and other useful metrics, benchmarking is important because it allows employees to compare current trends with historical trends. Users can implement other types of comparisons for other data types, which can help make comparisons stand out.
It is also important to consider external factors that may affect the reliability of the data. For example, a manager might notice that productivity metrics fell slightly in November compared to previous months. This could be due to an unseen issue, but more likely the Thanksgiving break has impacted the KPIs for this month.
In this case, the added context didn't change the accuracy of the data, but it did change the insights a manager needs to draw from it. The context allows for a better picture of the data, resulting in a more effective view.
Align it with your goals.Know what answers you want to get from your data and which data streams are the best choices to uncover insights. Asking the right questions and knowing what data to measure in order to get valid answers to those questions is a fundamental skill for anyone interacting with a BI tool.
BI tools that offerAd hoc reporting toolslike Domo make it easy to ask the right questions. Ad hoc reports allow employees to quickly collect new data sources, analyze them in new ways, and create new dashboards of their own.
Make sure the right people see it.All too often organizations have access to actionable data, but it doesn't end up in the right places. To be useful, data must be visible to the people who can actually use it. In some organizations, this means senior executives need to take a more active look at their data. In others, frontline workers need more access to the data that drives their work.
Closely related to this is ensuring that employees can truly understand critical data. While employees don't need any special training to use current BI software, they do need a certain level of data literacy to really use the data as soon as they receive it.
Leaders are always looking for ways to uncover insights that will help themfacilitate decisions. Data is the lifeblood of any business and if you can't turn it into actionable information, it becomes useless. In practice, this means that your business will be outperformed by companies with better information about their customers or more effective operations. Modern businesses need a solution likeDomo's enterprise cloud platformand apps thatempowers companies to create high-quality analyticsall aspects of your operations in real time without having to build complex systems. A corporate culture based on actionable data not only saves you valuable time and money, but also gives you a competitive advantage over other companies operating in the same industry.