Today, modern enterprises, and organizations should learn to optimize and accelerate the processes of data management and analysis to stay relevant. Due to poor data or slow data collection and processing, many businesses can suffer serious financial losses and lose leading positions. Poor data quality can lead the company to harmful and incorrect decisions. According to Zoominfo, 94% of companies suspect their customer data is incorrect.
Powerful IT tools come to the rescue here. The constant influx of large volumes of information requires fast, efficient digital solutions that collect, store, and analyze data. In this article, we’ll mention these tools and strategies that become necessary to identify current trends that help businesses make the right decisions and ensure their competitiveness.
Data Management Unwrapped
Understanding the Four Essential Types of Data Analysis
- Descriptive analysis. It’s the most comprehensive way to analyze data. Most often, this approach is used to develop Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). A descriptive analysis of the data answers the question “What happened?”. And it collects all the data in one table about a performed job in a company. For descriptive analysis, you create dashboards that report on the company’s work and analyze customer data.
- Diagnostic analysis. Many companies use this approach to analyze data to analyze their work. Diagnostic analysis suggests “What happened?”. With this data analysis method, the company observes the latest trends of its competitors, and determines the success and failure of the product among the audience.
- Predictive analysis. This approach to data analysis aims to convey the possible results of job performance. So, this approach answers the question “What can happen?”. Forecasts of the company’s future trends are based on such data as recent trends, audience preferences, the company’s latest financial successes, the situation in the country, and season. For example, if a fashion clothing store predicts its upcoming sales and what products will be purchased in autumn, they pay attention to fashion trends from the catwalks and how warm or cold the fall will be.
- Prescriptive analysis. This type of analysis combines modern technologies and techniques of the previous three types of data analysis. This also includes data analysis with the help of artificial intelligence, which we mentioned in our previous article. A prescriptive type of analysis answers the question “What should we do next?” and uses analysis tools to determine the company’s next course of action, creating a best-case scenario.
A Guide to Essential Data Management Tools
Is Excel Considered to Be a Data Management Tool?
Microsoft Excel is considered one of the most common and easiest tools for collecting and analyzing data. This is a program that contains sheets with cells which allows you to create tables for any purpose: content planning, customer reporting, etc. Microsoft Excel is considered an effective data storage tool if you need to store a large amount of data and perform the necessary calculations. Most often, Excel is used for accounting, as well as calculating the budget, sales, and taxes, creating plans and calendars, etc.
A Deep Dive into Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (also known as AWS), is one of the most popular tools used by TuneLab developers to design high-quality and reliable web solutions. The secret of the success of AWS is it offers over 200 different tools for cloud computing, data storage, and data tracking.
Amazon Web Services provide users with several benefits including
- Scalability. Depending on the data work volume, company size, and the growth rate in the market, AWS allows businesses to increase or decrease the number of computing resources and database storage space.
- Wide range of services. As mentioned above, AWS offers a wide range of services for data processing and storage. For example, we can mention Amazon S3, a simple data storage tool. With an intuitive interface, it makes storing, processing, and transferring data faster and easier. Also worth a special mention are Amazon Redshift, which analyzes data, Amazon Athena, which is built for SQL queries without the need for infrastructure management, and many others.
- Reliability and availability. AWS provides a high level of data access to a user, as well as a high quality of service, which speeds up the time of working with the system and reduces the risk of data loss. This is possible due to AWS extensive network of data centers around the world.
- Security: AWS provides a wide range of tools to keep data safe and protect it from leakage, and unauthorized access. Such tools allow you to control access to this data, encrypt it, and constantly monitor the actions carried out with this data.
- Flexibility and Integration. AWS also provides APIs extensive list that developers can easily integrate across platforms.
Thinklan's Role in IT Data Management and Analysis
TuneLab has also made efforts to help businesses automate routine work control processes within the company and collect data on the volume of work performed. Among such examples, we can mention the Thinklan CRM system, created to automate the record-keeping of work on repairing gadgets.
This use case was commissioned by an electronics repair enterprise from Latin America. The client wanted to digitize all paper documentation related to basic processes, including entering and maintaining records of how many gadgets were repaired by a certain number of technicians during a given time and how much money they earned during that period.
We created a CRM system that would be convenient to use both for the company’s employees and the customers. Employees create their profile in Thinklan, choose from a list of customer orders, and take orders to work, changing the completed task status. They also independently determine the quantity and availability of the necessary equipment and add the cost of their work to the cost of, for example, replacing smartphone screen glass. In turn, moderators and company managers can quickly and conveniently track the amount of work performed and exactly how much to pay this or that employee for the work performed.
With the Thinklan platform, customers get a convenient tool to track the progress of their order, along with a QR code that enables them to do so.
Maximizing Data Management with Power BI by Microsoft
Power BI is another Microsoft solution built for business. It is a cloud services pack that can quickly process data received from various sources, such as the aforementioned Excel, Google Analytics, Jira, etc. This tool is available both online and in a downloadable desktop version. This program can not only process the necessary data but also create various types of infographics. Power BI stores files in the PBIX format and these files can be securely uploaded to the site through the app itself.
Among the main advantages of Power BI are the simplicity and intuitiveness of the interface, which allows the user to process a large amount of data in a few clicks. The data processing speed is also affected by the large variety of ready-made templates for infographics. Equally important, Power BI includes a strong double-encryption mechanism that allows users to share this data securely, as well as labels that protect the privacy of this data. In addition, Power BI is also able to detect suspicious behavior in the application, which provides the client with protection against unwanted interventions by fraudsters.
Data management and analysis are the main factors of companies’ efficiency. The data collecting, analyzing, and storing process will bring considerable commercial success to the company and ensure its optimal operation, provided that there is a correct choice of these tools. The last role here is played not only by fast data processing with the help of programs but also by well-thought-out mechanisms for storing and protecting this data from unauthorized intrusions and theft.
By mastering the necessary tools for collecting, processing, and storing data offered by the IT industry, companies open up new opportunities for development and innovation in the digital world.
