Data is an Asset in Business. Make use of it.

Maybe in the 1980s and even 1990s, there was no job role defined as Data analyst or Data intelligence officer, but this role has become one of the high-income skills in recent times. Why? Over the last decade, data volumes have grown and businesses are beginning to realize how critical data could be to understanding their customers and taking the right decisions.

Indeed, the businesses that started early to leverage data in decision-making are already outperforming others. Many other businesses did not even realize until recent years that they had any need to organize, keep and study data. And even if they did, the volume of data to be kept and studied did not encourage them to pursue it. Thankfully, we now have cloud solutions to help us store large volumes of data and even access it anywhere.

Recent findings suggest that data may be the single most important asset for companies, both now and in the future. Businesses need to protect and secure data, the same way they do with other assets. Here are some reasons why you should protect your data.

Data guides the company to make the most beneficial decisions

If you do not have data (consumer data, industry data, operations, etc) on which to base your decisions, you will find yourself making avoidable mistakes as you go. For instance, if there is a particular product that accounts for the least revenue while gulping the most in production costs, it takes data to spot it out. With the right data analysis, you can also spot out why this is, find out if it is worth investing more into before it becomes profitable, or decide if to leave the said product altogether. Whatever decision you take based on data will help you become more profitable immediately and eventually.

A data breach can destroy your business in a blink

If you are conversant with business trends, you do not need any explaining to understand what consequences a business might suffer if its data gets into the wrong hands. Why else do you see companies looking for the most secure cloud solutions to protect their data, and adding several layers of security? In the past, there has been a lot of data compromise on those data kept in physical office locations. These days, no company worth its salt would even keep data on-site.

Equips you for market challenges

Many business leaders have realized that if we are going to see through into the future, we will need data to show us the way ahead. Data is no longer just a commodity you should purchase when you think you need it and discard afterward. It is the lens to seeing, understanding, and predicting market challenges so that you are at an advantage when they hit.

Customers’ data has to be protected

Besides your business operations data, there is the customer’s data which every business is mandated to protect. You might remember the data breach last year that led to the hacking of the social media handles of several influential personalities. You might also recall that several innocent social media users were duped by their cryptocurrencies in the process. That is just a tiny bit of what could go wrong when customers’ data is breached.

Besides getting and protecting data for your business, you should work on improving Data literacy for your employees so that with or without your presence, they can take the right steps. Some businesses are also going the extra mile to invest in systems that can efficiently and effectively process, analyze, and store the data that come in on a regular basis.

Secure your data and make use of it to stay profitable.