Data Integration and Analysis: The Foundation of Quality EPM Software

 

Useful Big Data Isn’t Just Lots of Data, It’s Lots of Types of Data

Big data isn’t just valuable because it’s large. The value lies in its complexity, depth, and breadth. In other words, the more types of data you can integrate from different sources, the more valuable your data analysis processes will be. By integrating data from all of the various sources (financial systems, production systems, customer relationship management software, etc.), you can get a much broader view of the operations, areas where costs can be cut, places where performance and productivity can be improved, ways to improve customer satisfaction, and waste that can be eliminated. Instead of analyzing only the data from a single department or area of the company, you can get a complete picture of the overall organization, its operations, and how well the business is running.

Data From Within Departments Improves Processes & Procedures

This data is useful to identify areas within each department that can be improved upon. For example, by integrating and analyzing data from all of the software, applications, cloud services, and other systems used by the finance department, you can determine where money is being wasted, what money is being left on the table, and where new potential revenue streams are hiding out. Likewise, by gathering and analyzing all of the data from disparate systems in marketing, you can identify better ways to generate new leads, better ways to move customers through the marketing funnel, and new ways to engage with customers to build deeper relationships.

Data From Other Departments Improves Processes & Procedures

But data isn’t just useful to the department in which it is generated or gathered. Data from every department can be useful to other departments, as well as to the organization as a whole. For example, numbers from the finance department are useful in helping the sales team set their goals for the next quarter. Figures from production can give finance a better idea of what to expect in terms of earnings over the coming months. Data from customer service and tech support is valuable to research and development, because they can use that information to build better products and improve existing product lines.