Many complementary services enable companies to derive broad value from data inside and outside them. The complexity of data management means that companies’ strategies determine the various data systems and functions they will use, says PBT Group regional sales director Armandé Kruger.

Data by itself is not a differentiator for companies, but its strategic use to determine trends and manage in-house processes accurately enables companies to differentiate themselves.

“Various strategic uses of data to support in-house processes will also determine which systems, and how data, are used. Speed of access to data is also a consideration, as employees and managers using mobile devices want access to their company’s data in near real-time.”

These systems use process and transactional data of high quality and accuracy, as exact details between a company’s records and these mobile devices must be the same.

“Thus, latency, bandwidth and security become key concerns and lead to the deployment of various systems and services to enable and secure these uses.”

In contrast, business intelligence systems and analytics systems do not require all data to be verified or validated, as the most important outputs of such systems are trends derived from multiple, related data streams, which then support more specific business responses.

“These more holistic systems do not necessarily depend on immediacy and accuracy, but often use large volumes of data to determine trends and associations. Further, a weight-allocation system for verified and unverified data can be used to make the outputs reliable while still using unstructured or unverified data to derive information and value from,” says Kruger.

For example, information gleaned from public sources, such as social media, can then be harnessed to enable a company to respond quickly to trends or sentiments, which are often rapid and transient, and use such information as ancillary information in more accurate business reports and processes such as customer-care services.

The strategic application of data is most crucial to deriving value, emphasises Kruger.

“We have become hoarders of data. There are, by a very conservative estimate, four to five copies of all data in the world. The more data we accumulate, the lower the value we derive from the data, owing to poor or inefficient use.”

Specifically, companies should base the prioritisation and application of data for business information or business analysis purposes on their corporate strategies.

This alignment of data movement and prioritisation with business direction will rationalise the time and effort spent on data and systems, as well as improve data management to reduce pressures on networks, information technology infrastructure and hardware.

Balancing the collection and processing of data is key and, hence, must be aligned to strategy, Kruger explains.

“Before long, we will be drowning in data. The availability of data is no longer the issue. The issue is how effectively the data is used.”

Companies must recognise the financial value of data in their operations, notwithstanding that it is used to run all aspects of their operations; they should consider it similar to an asset on their balance sheets, requiring similar strategic management and consideration, he concludes.