First things first, when you’re starting to think about data you need to understand what you actually need it for. Begin with the big picture - what are your company’s short- and long-term goals and how is it evaluating performance against these goals?

Next, drill down into each department, or area, of your business. What are their objectives? What metrics are they using to evaluate their performance, what problems are they grappling with and what questions are they trying to answer?

Say your business wants to better understand its consumers. It’s seeking to make its marketing and advertising more effective, gain a better understanding of consumer needs and preferences, and improve customer service and satisfaction rates.

You might begin by evaluating the data you hold on the path to purchase, consumers’ purchasing trends and brand loyalty. What can this data tell you about who your consumers are? What are their key characteristics, demographics and values? What are they buying and how do they make product choices and purchase decisions? What about any data you have on current trends in consumer behavior and preferences? And what feedback do you have about the things your business could do to improve consumer experiences?

You could tackle things from an operational perspective too, so data could help your business ask questions like: what new products or product enhancements would add value for the consumer? And, what improvements could you make to production, development or supply-chain logistics that might improve efficiency and reduce costs?

Asking these questions should help you to begin to identify the data your business requires. You might seek out qualitative data from your consumers, for example, or perhaps you’ll look at website data on the effectiveness of calls to action on your landing pages. You might even seek out product data on things like sales figures, distribution and demand trends, and maybe even pricing analytics…and that’s just for starters!

Building Your Data Strategy