Get data analysis working for you
As an owner or manager it is likely you have already looked into analysing your business’ KPIs. It is perhaps more likely that you have heard measuring them can help develop your business. And it’s true; when you use KPIs effectively there is a strong prospect of improving business performance.
To get data analysis working for your business you need to focus on understanding what your KPIs mean when you integrate an intelligence solution to improve performance.
Data in its nature is complex, but it doesn’t need to be. It just needs to mean something for your business to grow.
As a prominent voice on Big Data, Bernard Marr has outlined a few key points that get straight to the crux of what not to do when identifying and measuring KPIs. They are key misconceptions of how to interact with data that make it seem too Big to deal with. So if you are finding you’re not quite getting the results you want with measuring your Big Data and business performance, it could mean you were doing one of these three things:
Measuring everything that walks and moves
Data has been made so available in its digital nature that it is tempting to try and use every point possible in the hope of getting an advantage over your competition. The Internet of Things movement is gaining more and more traction with business, but what is the point of having all the data without the proper, effective and simple tools to understand it? Capturing multiple data sets to learn as much about what is really going on in your business can make the data seem complex, cumbersome to analyse and over-complicate your strategic development.
When it comes to analysing data and creating your KPIs, visualisations should be able to highlight comprehensive yet simple key outputs to easily identify opportunity and leave you with a clear strategic approach in mind.
Collecting the same KPIs as everyone else
When you are looking to measure the success of your business, you might think of analysing the same KPIs as your competitor. While it is good to understand how your competitors are using their data a common mistake is to blindly follow their lead and measure the same things they are before seeing the relevance to your goals. Apart from the very obvious metrics that most businesses need to measure their point of difference for those end of financial year statements, the choices you make in capturing and analysing data should depend solely on what is best for your business throughout the financial year — and not just once every quarter.
With the right tools data provides constant and consistent insights throughout the day, week or month to help you identify opportunities and exceed internal and industry benchmarks.
Missing the relevant KPIs
Since the world wide web took off in the 1990s data doubles in size every day and is streamed and stored in a never-ending bank of Big Data. While capturing superfluous data is only going to blow out the costs and scope of your project, missing important information can have a severe impact on how your KPIs effectively measure your business performance. The emergence of terms such as “Cloud 2.0” signifies this shift where executives are looking to understand how all of these numbers and figures impact their performance and which correlations are important to highlight.
Knowing your data resources double in size everyday is a gift and without the right business intelligence tools can be seen as a curse for executives, data analysts and information officers. The most important thing is to have the tools that help sort through the superfluous data and enhance how you engage with and measure your KPIs. Having the right tools to get data analysis working for your business means you can identify opportunities with a clear direction and make a significant difference to the performance of your business.
If you wish to further discuss data analytics opportunities in your pharmacy contact Head of Sales, Jackie Incandela directly on 0447 710 616.
Written by Brianna Charles at PharmaData. Tweet to us on PharmaData or continue the conversation on LinkedIn.
