The growing differentiator between brands who innovate and brands who stagnate is their ability to leverage big data, apply analytics and become data-driven in all areas of their business.
The endless amounts of data available today means businesses can align their products and services to customer demands quicker and more effectively than ever before. But this depends on their ability to create and implement a clear data strategy.
A data strategy with return does not focus on what kind of data is available, but what the business needs are and how data can help achieve them. Here are the key elements of a data strategy.
Define use of data. To find the right data, you must first define how the data will be used. What is the goal of the data? What problem will it solve? Will data be used for product development, brand analysis or pricing strategy? Defining the use of data is crucial. Know how your data will solve your problem.
Acquire data. Next, define all sources that will comprise your data set. This can be structured or unstructured data, external or internal data, from the World Wide Web to the Dark Web. Determine where the data you need is and use a cloud-based analytics platform to form your data set(s). Our highly scalable cloud-based software platform, Alto Analyzer, uses a variety of data sources: emails, enterprise data, web forums, social networks, news articles, presentations and multimedia feeds, and our engineers integrate and map data sources, regardless of type or volume, into coherent models.
Uncover insights. Apply algorithms to convert data in analytics and data visualizations to start uncovering insights. Our software makes it easy to search, analyze and understand multiple, complex datasets in real-time.
Analyze data. Dig deeper using data scientists. Having the right data science team working with your data makes all the difference. This means data scientists who can code queries with SQL to extract the right data. Our team of data analysts has expertise in Advanced Social Network Analysis (SNA), network topology mapping and digital analysis methodologies.
Govern data. Once your strategy is in place, determine how you will archive and administer your data. Have an agile approach and adjust the data acquisition process as insights develop. Alto Analyzer is highly scalable, bringing in endless amount of data from thousands of sources and includes options to create alerts and archives to manage data flow.
Data has become the most valuable resource of our time. How companies form and implement data strategies has never been more crucial to remain competitive and innovative.
For more information on how to form a data strategy using our patented, cloud-based software and team of data scientists, please contact info@alto-analytics.com. To learn more about Alto’s analyses and projects, subscribe to our newsletter below.