How Smart Data increase your business value and attractiveness for investors, so they will invest easier and faster

Today, every company is a data organization. It doesn’t matter if you have a tech company in Silicon Valley, an established manufacturer, a legacy real estate services firm, or even a consulting or marketing agency.?

Your Organization is collecting, storing, and aiming to build more data than ever before. And as an inevitable consequence, investing it is getting more and more a data-driven decision-making process.

Globally, we are in the middle of a data explosion right now. The total global volume of enterprise data is projected to double from 1,005 to 2,025 terabytes between 2020 and 2022.

It’s no surprise that many companies are trying to master their data. But they are lacking the knowledge and tools to effectively manage the data they’re collecting that makes them actually useful.

Big corporations hire the best experts or consulting firms to use data as a competitive advantage. But at small businesses, the potential of data for repeatable, reliable, and fast success and results is often overlooked or underused. Unfortunately, that is increasing the risk to get left behind or missing out on big opportunities.

Business owners know, that money lies in their data.

But they don′t know, where to start or how to understand and use the data to drive decisions. There is not enough time to think strategically. They have to focus on the daily work to keep the operations running.

I believe, that understanding your data and creating Smart Data to accelerate growth and drive better decisions is essential for every modern leader and business owner.

What is Smart Data?

Turning data into useful, actionable insights for your business growth even without having an MBA or being a Data Scientist is the key to Smart Data Analytics. Smart Data tells a story that everybody understands and can easily translate into decisions and actions.

Smart Data Analytics will help you understand what smart investors look for when they consider an investment. Focussing only on numbers makes your business a comparable commodity. But if you can mitigate your weaknesses, and ensure that your business is ready to scale, then there’s a real chance of getting that investment you need.

Smart Data Analytics will also facilitate a clear roadmap with actionable steps to help you convince an investor that your business is worth investing in. It starts your path to increased sales revenues that will lead to promoting your business for sale or getting the investment you’ve been searching for by using a proven method.

Here are some examples, what Smart Data Analytics can do for your business:

• 30% more lead conversions & revenue using Smart Data Performance Analytics
• Multiplying business value building irresistible assets using Smart Data Strategies
• Attract and win the best investors without rejection using Smart Data Storytelling

Smart Data Analytics gives businesses and investors deeper insights in terms of scalability, flexibility, and integration with technologies like IoT, AI, or CRM automation. However, rather than a clear and structured data warehouse, many organizations end up with something more like a stagnant data swamp, full of murky data pollution.

So, what can you do to prevent the swamp and take full advantage of your data?

1. Pick the most important company data…and get key players to agree

Everybody's darling is everybody's fool. The same is true for data. Stop treating all of your company’s data as if it has the same level of importance. Trust me, it doesn’t.

You need to decide — aligned with your strategic goals and objectives — what data is the most important to your organization and its stakeholders or potential investors. You can’t possibly cover all your data. Dumping all of it into an unstructured data lake is the quickest way to create a swamp.

So, come up with the data that’s really driving the company and delivering wider impact and business value. Focus on data that are driving sales and marketing efficiencies, enhancing the customer experience, informing product development. Define those to be your KPIs and success metrics.

Once you’ve got those key success metrics and the most important data defined, make sure you align with key stakeholders, so you have their buy-in.

Here are some questions to ask:

What are powerful key KPIs?

What are the metrics that we will measure and why?

What structures and processes around how data gets pulled into these metrics are required?

What systems does your data reside in?

Think about creating a data dashboard and rulebook that clearly states the above so that everyone can refer back to it and help manifest your overall data strategy.

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2. Master your data

So, you’ve picked the most important, business-critical data, and you’ve gotten an agreement on it from key people related to your organization. What’s next?

You need to know your data process – how is it created? Where is it entered? How is it being maintained?

Document, where your company’s important data is coming from, and how and where it’s entered into your systems. Make sure you include processes for getting rid of duplicates or invalid datasets. Data cleansing may not be the sexiest thing, but it’s one of the most important – and done well, can save you a ton of money and resources.

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3. Governance and Compliance is critical for company data

I know, governance is often seen as controlling, slow and limiting. But in reality, it helps assign authority and control over data assets, so that data is consistent and can be used across your organization or leveraged with strategic partners.

Without proper governance, we could have multiple values for the same customer. That could dilute the information we have or prevent us from making smart data-driven decisions.

Good governance should also support compliance with any regulation that affects your organization, whether it’s ADA, GPDR, LGPD, or beyond.

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Last but not least, transparency is crucial. Internally, this means clear communication between all stakeholders, allowing different departments to apply their knowledge, whilst driving transparency and accountability for maintaining data quality.

Externally, it’s imperative to be completely transparent about what customer and prospect data your company is collecting. The most obvious reason for this is to avoid falling foul of regulators – many businesses have already received multi-million-euro fines for violating GDPR transparency clauses. It’s just not worth it.

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The more data, the better? Not necessarily

More data isn’t always better. Companies should be cautious about collecting and storing data for which they have limited tangible use. Not only does this present security, privacy, and compliance risks, storing and managing such data also represents an unnecessary expense. Instead, focus on data that has value and utility – you probably have more than enough of it already!

Clean, usable, and valuable smart data have the potential to foster new business growth, unlock opportunities, streamline operations, enhance customer relationships and experience.

If you are looking to acquire capital, smart data will boost your investability and sellability. You can easily create stories once you understand the potential of your data. That will attract and win the best investors and strategic partners.

Who wouldn’t want that?