A massive amount of data is being generated every day. According to the IBM Marketing Cloud Study, 90% of data that exists today is created since 2016. Be it a small scale or a large scale enterprise, the amount of data generated keeps increasing exponentially day by day.
With this rapid increase of data in-flow, enterprises face difficulties dealing with them. Among these are the two unique challenges:
1) How to handle the large amount of data?
2) How to standardise this data across the systems?
Inconsistency in data often misguides the enterprises in realising their true nature. Data from different sources creates redundancy and it is often incompatible across multiple systems. Some data contains noise and makes it even harder to use it for analysis purposes.
On average a business uses 10 to 13 applications generating data spread across disparate systems. This is the main reason for poor data quality that confines an organisation into making trivial decisions.
Small organisations may not realize the importance of data integration considering it an additional expense but it could help them save thousands of dollars and could lead to a new business perspective. With the amount of data these small businesses generate, if handled appropriately, can prove to be more valuable.
For example, a small cafe generates huge amount of data about their customers, the items purchased and an inventory system which holds data on stock details. If these systems are integrated and the data flows across the systems, data generated is of improved quality and can help them analyse their sales for efficient inventory restocking. This can help them improve their business by developing appropriate business strategy.
Large organisations might have realised the importance of handling data but not about data integration. Most of the data is not used to its full potential due to lack of understanding of the scope of the data. System and data integration provides a comprehensive view of data and extends the scope of the business as such. Data quality can be improved by ten folds when all the systems communicate with each other and there is seamless flow of data across the business.
In any organisation, be it small or large, decision making process largely depends on the data available to the decision makers. From the senior executives in a large organisation making calculated decisions to the instantaneous decisions made by the call centre representatives in customer service, data quality plays a major role. Data quality, being the major challenge in a business, can be improved through data integration for enhanced decision making process.
Information systems have become core of businesses. With exponential change in technology and trends, all enterprises are trying to explore the common business drivers. Multiple systems generating tremendous amount of data leave the business in a spin. In order to handle the data effectively and appropriately, businesses are forced to improve the quality of data. It is highly recommended to both small and large organisations to make use of data integration services to attain high level of data quality and use them to do better business.
We, at A&H Digital Solutions, offer high quality system and data integration services. Please feel free to contact us to see how we can add value to your business or work.
