Data collection has become a crucial function of all modern businesses. It goes a long way in enabling people to gain a better understanding of their business processes and prospects. Joshua Melick, however, points out that each company handles its company data in a distinguished manner. There can be several reasons for such differences. Moreover, certain companies might be better than the others in handling their data. But ultimately, the majority of companies today are still not adequately proficient in data handling.
Small and medium scale enterprises are especially not adequately well-versed with the process of data handling. A lot of them don’t understand the true value of data, while many don’t have skilled staff for data handling. Joshua Melick mentions that big organizations are comparatively better at handling data. This basically implies to the fact that they understand the true value of data, and work hard to be both save and collect it. However, the majority of these companies follow increasingly cumbersome and complex methods for data handling. This factor has led to the emergence of diverse large market players like Salesforce and Oracle. While smaller companies typically promise of more agile or swift solutions, they largely rely on distinctive ad hoc processes and methods, and end up losing a lot of data.
The most important type of data for a business is consumer data. This basically implies to all the personal, behavioral, and demographic data collected about the customers of a company. A company not properly handling this data would not be able to understand their core target audience, who shall be the foundation of all marketing strategies of a business. Unless a company is able to uncover important insights from their consumer data that guides their business into the future, their chances for growth and progress will reduce significantly.
Hence, for all businesses, proper handling of consumer data is extremely imperative. Joshua Melick mentions that for this purpose, they must see to it that this data is made available for use whenever required. However, doing so is not easy, as even in a small business, consumer data shall be spread across diverse systems. The modern purpose-built SaaS applications have invariably made it easier for people to run their business, but resulted in a number of problems as well. Owing to SaaS applications, the data of several businesses end up in disparate systems. A number of these systems require manual work or have limited APIs. In such a scenario, matching data across systems can prove to be extremely difficult. To solve this issue, tools like Zapier have cropped up. In the enterprise domain, MuleSoft or Snowflake can also help. Among the various options available, Salesforce can be both the best and worst solution to the problem. While it is multiple advantages, it is quite an expensive tool and can be difficult for people to use who have to carry out the tasks involved manually.
