Insights on Datafication

Datafication is truly converting our entire lifestyles, our actions and thoughts into gadgets or software which are powered by means of data. The term “datafication” was introduced by Kenneth Cukier and Victor Mayer-Schöenberger in 2013 to refer to transforming invisible processes into data that companies can use to optimize their business. They defined datafication as the conversion of social action into online quantifiable data that enables real-time tracking and predictive analysis. It’s about taking formerly invisible processes or functions and turning them into data that can be monitored, tracked, analyzed and optimized. Modern technology we use has enabled new ways of ‘datify’ our everyday and primary work.

From sports to money and from leisure to healthcare the whole thing around us is changing into data. For example, we create data every time we talk on the phone, text, tweet, email, use Facebook, watch videos, withdraw money from an ATM, use a credit card or even go through a security camera. The concept is different from digital processing. Of course, datafication is more than digitization. A vast amount of data contains information about our identity and behavior. Datafication helps us understand the world in ways never before possible. New technologies are now available to enter, store, process and visualize this data.

Social platforms, Facebook or Instagram, for instance, collect and reveal facts, records of our connections to marketplace services and products to us and surveillance services to organizations which in turn changes our behavior; promotions that we each day see on the socials also are the end result of the monitored data. In this version, information is used to redefine how content is created through datafication being used to tell content instead of advice systems.

Image source — Google

The application of Datafication includes –

• Human Resource Management :- Datafication can lead to the development of new personality measures that recruiters can use. Instead of making applicants undergo personality tests, datafication can measure analytical thinking to look if applicants fit the enterprise culture and roles they may be applying for.
• Customer Relationship Management :- Datafication allows businesses to collect information based on the tone and language customers may use in phone calls, emails, and social media.
• Commercial Real Estate :- Real estate companies can use datafication tools and techniques to benefit in depth insights in different areas.
• Financial Service Provision :- Insurance companies are using datafication to recognize people’s risk profiles and improve their business models. Banks can also use it to predict a person’s ability to repay a loan or mortgage.

Organizations need data and extract knowledge and information to perform critical business processes. An organization uses data for decision making, planning and other important purposes. Data shows that in today’s data-dominated landscape, an organization’s survival depends on having complete control over the storage, retrieval, encryption, and retrieval of data and related information.

As datafication turns into extra common and the impact of peoples’ lives extra huge, the improvement of recent frameworks for information is becoming increasingly more vital. Similarly, datafication calls for a considerable reassessment of several regions of an industry’s operation. Simply put, Datafication has begun to change the world in ways we never imagined. Big datasets require storage, database software to store the data, and analytical tools to transform the data into meaningful business information. Data protection, data management and data analysis technology now gives us the tools to see patterns, situations and relationships in political, economic, social and environmental.

I hope this article offers you some help in understanding Datafication. Feel free to connect with me through LinkedIn.