The Ultimate Guide on Centralized Data Management
With the increasing need and urge to reach prospective buyers, digitization has become a norm for new-age companies. According to statistics, 53% of the companies have adopted data analytics for their businesses; telecommunication and financial services providers are the most.
However, the recent reports state that concerns of all sectors are starting to become data-driven, for which a crucial step is data centralization. In established companies with wide-ranging branches, this project is now essential; however, it takes a significant amount of time to complete but isn't impossible.
Importance Of Centralization Of Data
The utility of data from the customer and the company front in improving a business is well-established. Data-driven organizations are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, have six times more chance of retaining customers, and show a probability of becoming 19 times more profitable than their non-digitized counterparts. Add the number of branches worldwide, and the percentages increase significantly.
Data centralization is essential because it is easier to manage data when it is accessible to the appropriate workforce. Dividing it into different locations will make it an obstacle instead of an asset. With the several available cloud-based BI tools, companies will analyze complete sets of inter-related data, strategize and implement the business decisions accordingly.
So, why do you need to have a centralized database management system for your company? Let us consider a real-life example.
Suppose you are going to a party with a fabulous buffet filled with dishes made by world-class chefs. However, when you reach the venue, take your plate, and proceed to the dining hall – you see there are two arrangements:
Dish number one is in the basement, item number two is on the patio, and the main course is on the roof – and so on. Or,
All the items are arranged in a long table at the sides, with smiling waiters – and you can go and take the dish of your choice as per your wish.
Which arrangement would you go for? The second one, right? As nobody likes running here and there to have their food while having dinner. The same thing applies to a centralized data management platform.
When the company data sets are scattered over great distances, it becomes tough for the employees to undertake even the simplest operations. Moreover, ill-assorted or fragmented data will inhibit progress, stifle innovation, and make the organization less competitive.
Optimization Of Workflows
Bringing all the required data in a consolidated position works in many ways: firstly, point-to-point connection engages directed operations, helping companies heighten the workflows and systematize the use of multiple web applications. However, although this data management technique (social media platforms, marketing campaigns, websites, and other avenues) works resourcefully, very little value from the data is derived.
For example, many companies transfer Google Adwords data to Salesforce to enrich the data of Salesforce and analyze their marketing campaign. On the other hand, if data from Adwords, Salesforce, and other platforms are centralized, data management solutions companies can perform more in-depth analysis and integrate the business intelligence (BI) tools for taking improved and wide-ranging data-driven decisions. The management can apply this policy to the entire company along with promotional campaigns.
As said earlier, centralizing data from specific data warehouses or data lakes is cumbersome but not impossible. With centralized access, companies can implement efficient and effective enterprise data management platforms for business. Keeping the data segregated in data silos will make the company lose valuable insights, miss business opportunities, and stop making intelligent decisions.
Advantages Of Data Centralization
In this era of data-driven businesses, access to all pertinent data and comprehensive analysis helps the businesses achieve better, initiate revenue, increase customer satisfaction, and optimize expenses. There are several data centralization benefits for a company. Some of them are listed below:
- Improved Consistency
- Optimizing Data Assets
Keep improving or supports continuous improvement in decision-making processes.
Enhances the tracking and optimization of the ongoing business protocols.
Minimizes the adverse effects of errors and redundancies in the organization while preventing any business risk for the organization.
- Focusing On Long-Term Goals
- Enriched Customer Experiences
- Time And Money-Saving
- Enhanced Security
Businesses can easily observe and regulate data access.
Implementation of data access protocols and procedures becomes more accessible and practical.
Companies can better handle the corruption of secure data.
It is crucial to have a concrete guidelines and transparency across the various departments of the business organization. With similar data and insights across the organizations, it becomes easier for a company to be consistent in its operation. The decisions made using the business analytics tools can be utilized equally by all the departments in the business organization.
Data centralization ensures that the customers are provided with the same high-quality information throughout their journey for marketing campaigns. The approach will give a consistent direction to the people creating content for the organization.
Decentralized and unorganized data can be inhibitory towards the business growth of an organization. On the contrary, if centralized access and data analysis are performed, companies stand in a better position to make better business decisions. In addition, processing and management of the data in a centralized location can help in cost-effective optimization, rather than it becoming an obstacle. Having a centralized data platform will be beneficial because it:
Having access to clean, current, accurate, and reliable information through centralized data provides an essential competitive advantage for organizations.
There is an obvious advantage of having the required data centralized, processed, cleansed, analyzed, and stored in a central location. The company staff will have more time to focus on the business goals than organizing the data. Centralized data also provide more chances to the BI and marketing teams to complement their functions. If your marketing team understands how a supply chain works, they will be able to estimate and troubleshoot the problems of a business operation with amplified accuracy.
Any business will place more effort on the maintenance of customers than acquiring them. Customers expect high performance and consistency in all company sectors in this data-driven business age and demand its care throughout their operation. With centralized data, all the business departments will remain in tune with one another so that the customers will experience the highest level of service across all departments of the business.
Raw data must be cleaned and processed before analysis because in its original form – it's useless. Centralized data in data warehouses or data lakes have inherently reduced reporting times, making the massive amount of data legible, visible, and arranged in a simple format.
Data spread in multiple locations will generate numerous reports, which in turn will require centralized compiling processes. Teams equipped with centralized data spend lesser time developing and gathering information and more time working on their business strategies and decisions.
Centralized data optimize the use of resources by pointing out the inefficiencies more quickly while making the solutions more apparent and compelling. Business data integration and management allow the user to view a "bigger picture" of the business and make informed business decisions.
Have you ever thought about why jewelry stores or bank vaults have a single point of access or return? It's because with an increased number of doors, the probability of an offender escaping also increases. Decentralized data suffer from the same problem; when it is present in multiple locations, it becomes tougher to track and secure data interactions. With a centralized data platform, here is how data security is improved:
Having a centralized data warehouse allows a company to regulate and control the access and interaction of sensitive data at every level. Nowadays, digital security has improved enough to provide all-around protection for your data. Moreover, the safety of decentralized data will require more capital and overhead. Centrally located data will help in reducing the cost of arrangement and implementation of security measures at different locations.
Optimization Of Business Processes
All businesses gradually move towards the processes that help them achieve their targets using the least of their resources. This method of business optimization is significantly dependent on the availability of centralized data. These data can inform the companies about the processes acting in their favor and which aren't.
Likewise, companies can provide compartmentalized access with centrally stored data, ensuring seamless sharing and secure management. It is also a better way to ensure data security with adequate maintenance of privacy and compliance. So, suppose your business is thinking of expanding into other sectors while maintaining seamless and transparent communication. In that case, it is better to call upon the services of a proficient company providing enterprise data management solutions.
Gain Traction in The Data-Driven Era
Access to data bundles and implementation of analytic tools have launched us head-first into a data-driven business era. It isn't enough to have access to data anymore. The companies will need to ensure a transparent flow of information across all departments to get the same level of service everywhere. They can be motivated to continue the business relationship through this enterprise data management.
Solutions like Wersel’sDiscoverX offers a centralized view of brand health across different channels online. DiscoverX is the 360-degree search platform that your business needs for the classification and digitization of different forms of information to enable smart decision-making.
