From Gut Instincts to Data-Driven Decisions

In the past, many companies relied heavily on gut feelings and instincts to drive business decisions, but today, success depends on the ability to justify decisions with data. As companies move toward this new paradigm, they face both challenges and opportunities in harnessing the power of data to achieve their goals. One of these challenges is quite simple, many people simply do not understand how the data pipeline works and the different roles involved, here is a brief overview:

Business Requirements - Data Strategists

The first step in this process is to understand the business objectives. What is the company trying to achieve? What are the key decisions they need to make? What data sources do they rely on to make these decisions? This should be the starting point for any data initiative to understand what the business values and where insight can create a more profitable business.

Set Up Infrastructure - Data Architects

This understanding informs the design of a data infrastructure tailored to the organisation’s needs. It is all about aligning the technology stack with the business goals, level of data maturity and likely data volumes in both the short and medium term. While analytics often sits in its own silo, the technology chosen should complement what the business already has in place.

Extracting & Modelling Data - Analytics Engineers

Once the infrastructure is in place, the next step is data engineering. Analytics engineers play a critical role in transforming unstructured and unorganised data into something useful. They clean, organise, and structure the data, making it possible to draw meaningful insights from it. This transformation is vital because, without structured data, it is impossible to perform the analyses that lead to informed decision-making.

Analysing & Visualising - Data Analysts

After the data is structured, the focus shifts to analysis. Analysts dig into the data, uncovering patterns, trends, and insights that can help the business improve its operations. This step is where the data starts to provide real value, offering concrete ideas for enhancing business performance. For those burning questions and key metrics which need to be monitored they will also visualise the numbers into charts, graphs and dashboards to allow stakeholders to quickly grasp complex information and make informed decisions.

Simplifying The Process

For many companies, the idea of building and managing a data infrastructure can seem daunting. The key is to get the basics right from the start. Building a solid foundation enables everyone in the organisation to use data easily and effectively. One approach that can make this process easier is to bring in a fractional data team. Hiring a full data team takes time, and has a significant cost associated with it, and so having a team come in and quickly set up your infrastructure and model core data sources can allow you to get started with data quickly, without the overheads. Many of our clients will hire a data analyst in house who then takes the work we have done and runs with it.

Data is a team sport. Different parts of the pipeline require expertise and so plugging in a fractional team may offer you the speed and agility to leverage data quickly, without the overheads. If you’re interested in leveraging data but not sure where to start, why not get in touch with the friendly team at 173tech.