The modern economy is digital, and data is something that companies have to deal with on a larger scale than ever before. Data is now the foundation of intelligence for key business decisions. Thus, data management solutions are essential to provide employees with access to the most relevant data for their needs. The important provisions of data management solutions include:
- Visibility.
- Reliability.
- Security
- Scalability.
In collecting, organising, protecting and storing data, all these requirements must be met. The data can then be analysed for decision-making.
So What is Data Management, Exactly?
Organisations are creating and consuming data fast and in vast volumes. Data management solutions are the things that make sense of all that data. Modern solutions ensure that there is always accurate and up-to-date data available to serve as the foundation for decision-making.
Software like ERP solutions collect and collate the data from different departments throughout an organisation. They also harness that data to enact analytics and produce reports and forecasts. This enables decision-makers to see how data from different arms of the company relate to one another and analyse that data in a variety of ways.
What Types of Data Management Exist?
Data management techniques come in various forms. The following is a list of examples of methods of managing data:
- Data Pipelines: Automated data transfer between systems.
- Data Preparation: The cleaning and transforming of raw data into formats that can be analysed, including combining data sets and making corrections.
- Data Catalogues: The management of metadata for the creation of complex pictures of data. This includes summaries of changes, location and quality.
- Extract, Transform, Load (ETL): Solutions that take data from a system, transform it and add it to an organisation’s data warehouse.
- Data Warehouses: Virtual locations where multiple data sources are consolidated for simplified analysis.
- Data Architecture: A formalised approach for the creation and management of data flow.
- Data Governance: The defining of standards, policies and processes for maintaining the security and integrity of data
Again, ERP systems are fantastic for this. They combine many of these features of data management to create complex and powerful solutions. By harnessing and organising data in these ways, you are empowered to make key decisions based on an understanding of the things that are already happening in your operations.
Why is Data Management Important?
Data management is essential as the foundation of employing data analysis at scale. This can lead to important insights that make your customers more valuable to you and bring about improvements to your bottom line.
By managing the vast amounts of data that relate to your organisation’s operations, important decision-makers throughout the business can utilise trusted data in their work. Benefits of good data management include:
Enhanced Visibility
Data management can give you greater visibility of your organisation’s data assets. In turn, this eases the processes for finding the most appropriate data for analysis. With this level of data visibility, your company becomes more organised and productivity improves, with employees having an efficient avenue to access the data they need to do their jobs better.
Greater Reliability
Reduce the risk of errors by establishing strict policies for data usage. This helps establish trust in the data that is applied to company-wide decision-making. With reliable data in real-time, companies are able to be more agile in responding to customer needs and market trends.
Security
Data management brings greater protection to your organisation by helping prevent data losses, theft and breaches. Tools for authentication and encryption are very effective for this, keeping vital information backed up and retrievable if it is blocked at the primary source. Security is particularly important when the data you store contains personally-identifiable information. Data management can help with your security compliance in instances like this.
Scalability
With data management, you can become more effective at scaling by deploying repeatable processes that keep data and metadata up-to-date. With simple processes, your organisation can operate more efficiently and remove redundant processes.
What are the Keys to Successful Data Management?
Implementing best practices can help you reap the greatest benefits from data management. Here are some important considerations for success:
Identifying Business Goals Clearly
It’s important to know your collective goals in order to get the most out of data management. Setting goals helps determine processes for managing data. It will ensure you only keep and organise data that is relevant to your objectives, making decision-making as efficient as possible and keeping data reserves more manageable.
Focusing on Data Quality
The data you manage should be reliable, so the processes you put in place must revolve around preserving data quality. After establishing your goals, be sure to regularly review everything to ensure the data being collected is accurate and relevant. Whenever incorrect formatting or other errors arise, these issues need to be resolved, and all team members should be well-versed in preserving the quality of data.
Integrating Disparate Databases
Organisations typically draw data from various sources and pieces of software. Integrating these data sources is a significant data challenge – one that ERP software can solve. These systems are designed to bring these disparate data sources together, managing data into a single database. Many also offer integrations with third-party software to get best results. ERP systems are generally regarded as the most efficient way to do this.
Prioritising Data Security
Data should be accessible only to the right people within your organisation. This ensures maximum efficiency as well as good security. Train your team members on the correct handling of data and establish protocols to prevent data being accessible to anyone who doesn’t need it. Always have worst-case scenario strategies in case a potential breach takes place. Data management software usually offers many tools to maintain the security of your data.
Implement a High-Quality Data Management Platform
Effective data management solutions are essential for modern companies to take full advantage of the vast swathes of data they accumulate. ERP solutions are one of the best examples of this. They collect, collate and organise data from disparate streams throughout your organisation. They also offer a number of other tools relating to the analysis and implementation of that data, as well as various non-date-related considerations.
Explore options for data management systems so you are ready to face the challenges of big data head-on. This will set you up to turn these challenges into opportunities and grow your organisation to new levels.
Why Choose Eventura as your ERP Implementation Partner?
Eventura has been providing robust business solutions to countless organisations for over two decades. We are ERP experts and can identify all of your business needs, including issues surrounding supply chain, and deliver a comprehensive ERP solution that works for you.
As Sage 200 Partners and NetSuite Solution Providers, we can help you identify which solution will fit your business needs the best. Our expert team of business analysts, developers, consultants, technicians and support staff can guide you through your entire project, from initial scoping through to implementation and on-going support.
We’re also managed IT service providers meaning we can help you identify your entire IT infrastructure requirements from day one. If you would like to speak to one of our ERP experts to discuss your options or request a free demo, you can request a free call back here.
