Today’s business world is changing at a dizzying pace and the decisions we make must be more agile and accurate than ever. In this context, data analysis is essential to facilitate the path towards smarter decisions that bring greater value to the business.
To do this effectively, it is necessary to have a good data analysis strategy to identify needs, opportunities and suitable use cases.
In this article we take you on a journey through the 5 key steps that will allow you to get the most value from your data.
1. Let’s start with the basics: define what you want to achieve through your data.
Our journey begins with what is fundamental to any strategy: defining objectives. Although it may seem obvious, the first thing to understand is that data analysis is not just about crunching numbers and statistics.
This means that before implementing more advanced techniques and technologies, it is important to understand your organization’s needs, objectives and challenges. That’s what will guide you to collect, process and leverage your data in a meaningful, business-serving way.
In addition, well-defined objectives allow you to measure progress and evaluate the impact of data analytics on business objectives. Without solid objectives, data analytics will lack direction and focus, wasting resources and time.
2. Let’s continue in order: Where will you store your data?
Once you have your objectives defined, the next key step is to decide where to store, collect and organize your data in the cloud.
There are data repositories that you can choose according to your different purposes and needs. For example, if you need to keep as much data as possible without losing information, you can opt for a data lake, also known as a Data Lake, which allows you to store large amounts of raw data and to which you can resort whenever you want to explore new or unknown data.
In terms of organization and data collection, another option is to build a data warehouse, also known as Data Warehouse, which will allow you to have at your fingertips a structured repository, that is, where all the important data is already organized and ready for use.
In addition, with a modern Data Warehouse, you can perform advanced analytics techniques such as descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytics, from which you can extract valuable knowledge and insights from your data.
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It is time to analyze!
Once you have established a solid foundation for your data, the next step in your journey is to start analyzing it for insights in order to make smarter decisions based on data rather than intuition.
To this end, another key step in getting the most value out of your data is the effective combination of different analytics approaches and scenarios, such as data science and real-time analytics.
While data science provides the depth and insight needed to make informed strategic decisions, real-time analytics gives you the agility to react quickly in an ever-changing world.
However, the combination of data science and real-time analytics is a dynamic process that requires a solid technological infrastructure as well as teams specialized in both disciplines.
4. Technology, the icing on the cake
In this journey towards maximizing the value of your data, it is essential to select the right tools and solutions to make the data analysis process as efficient as possible.
Ambitious companies have already started to opt for fully integrated cloud solutions that allow them to store, process and analyze their data easily and securely.
Microsoft Fabric, Microsoft’s new unified cloud data analytics solution, combines technologies such as Data Factory, Synapse Analytics, Power BI, Real-Time Analytics and Synapse Data Science, so organizations can store, integrate and analyze their data all from one place.
In this way, you will be able to establish a single source of reliable and unified data that will allow you to democratize access to your data and reduce the time and effort of your teams to obtain valuable knowledge.
5. Wait, without a specialized team, everything will be more difficult…
The last point, but not the least, is the fundamental role of a specialized team.
However, many companies do not have the resources to implement, manage and master these types of cloud solutions, a complex task considering the large number of different technologies and products that are often disconnected from each other.
That is why many companies rely on a specialist partner with the necessary know-how and experience to not only advise and assist them in the implementation of technologies, but also to accompany them along the way.
As Top Cloud Partner of Microsoft, Softeng accompany you on the road to maximize the real value of your data. Want to know more? Our team will be happy to talk to you.