The Value of Data
Part 2 of our sixth post continues on the theme of how data holds value, either for an individual, a business, a sporting organisation or society as a whole.
In general, we can say that data delivers insights which can inform decision making, encouraging us to take action which will increase monetary returns, or improve outcomes in other valuable ways.
Here we asked our team to share what the value of data means to them, in their experience. Some contributions are personal, others are more general. We have already heard from 3 of our specialists in part 1.
Here are the next 3 contributions from Bob Corr, Paul Duggan and Lorenzo Lumanlan.
1. Bob Corr (Managing Director DBI)
Innovation and Product Development
Data can inspire organisations to develop new products and services where it points to a need that could be fulfilled with some R & D.
The revelation of patterns or relationships in data can expose opportunities that are not immediately obvious. In healthcare this can lead to new treatments. In sales it can lead to developing new sites or products.
In our own case at DBI it has led us to developing our new SaaS service, Online Business Insights Service (OBIS). We noticed that the data sets of many of our existing and new customers are very similar, but just have different naming conventions. With some very clever design we have created a new online portal that can cater for many different companies. It allows them to upload their raw data automatically to be transformed to fit with a suite of reporting covering many different areas of a business. This gives them almost immediate access to a very sophisticated Business Analytics platform. It can save them days of costly bespoke development and provides them with a world class analysis tool at a manageable cost. For further information see our dedicated page.
2. Paul Duggan (Software Development Manager DBI)
Time Management and Productivity
Time is money – so goes the old saying. There are multiple apps that can record how you personally spend your time. These include apps such as RescueTime that monitor how you spend time on your mobile devices or your PC, dividing it up into social media, work time etc. Others track time by giving you an interface to log time spent on projects and activities.
For those whose business model includes an element of consultancy such as lawyers and IT specialists, having an accurate record of time spent on each chargeable project is crucial for trust and transparency, not to mention critical for the business to turn that time into the correct value for work done.
In our workplace we record all activities during the day in a bespoke Time Sheet application, which encodes time by Customer and Project. We then use the integration and reporting capabilties of the Diver Platform to create reports that can be used to drive our invoicing processes, and provide the detailed data that our customers might request. Without the data, our business model would be unable to turn our time into value.
3. Lorenzo Lumanlan (BI Developer/Consultant DBI)
Risk Management and Security
The value of data can be especially high when it is used to counteract fraud and security issues, which would otherwise lead to prolonged periods of financial losses. Data patterns can be recognised using algorithms to detect unusual behaviours which could be a threat to a business, such as high levels of network activity or product returns.
In our work, we often analyse data patterns to identify unusual retail till activities, such as irregular transaction volumes, suspicious refund behaviors, or discrepancies in stock movements. Additionally, we investigate stock shrinkage patterns, such as inventory levels not aligning with sales data. These insights enable businesses not only to investigate further but also act decisively, providing the data-driven evidence necessary to halt fraudulent practices and enhance overall security protocols.
