Regardless on the industry you work in, or whatever your interests are, you will, almost certainly, have heard about the importance of data. Data is key in today’s world and many economists believe that, it is the driver for growth and change. With the numerous platforms and sources like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and IOT, Google Communications, etc., humongous amount of data are generated every second. The question to ask, however, is; what are we doing with them? How do we use them to solve problems?
A lot of individuals and organizations, have a lot of data, but do not know how to process them to get value and so they outsource this responsibility to experts in some Agencies, to convert the data, into insights. If followed correctly, however, data can be used to solve problems like, mapping crime, disaster management, predictions, etc.
In as much as having data help make better and informed decisions, however, organizations need to be cautious, when collecting users’ data and sharing this with third parties. I recently had a chat with Madonna Ononobi, COO, Connected Analytics, on Tech Trends on Channels Television and she shed light, on the importance of data to an organization, how to analyse data and how best to use data, to improve sales and lots more.
CFA: What’s the importance of data and data analytics, to an organization?
Madonna: For every business organization, both public and private, data should be a very important part of growing their businesses, in terms of sales and also customer acquisition. For instance, a business owner, goes to work everyday, sells a product and at the end of the day, says; how much have I sold?
What data analytics has done, in this case, is the fact that, it tries to help you understand what exactly to sell, in terms of , if you know your customer’s age range, or, who comes to your store, in terms of gender, you get to know, what exactly to stock up and make money from that. I believe that data is the key, in every decision making that you get to do, as a business owner.
CFA: I’ve often heard the phrase that, ‘data is the new gold’, or, ‘the new oil’. Why is it so?
Madonna: In everything you do, its data, without you, even, understanding or knowing it. The colour of cloth that you, even, wear today, is data. Why? Because, probably, they say, blue is more for male than female. That’s data acquisition, right there because, there is a notion that blue and how did they get to know that blue is for male and pink is for female?
It’s because of the data that they have accumulated over time, of what people actually like. I feel that, data is the new gold because, getting to understand what, in terms of public, private business owners and human beings, one step, knowing what you really need to do, in terms of acquisition, I think you are one step, closer to your goal
You can watch the full interview here