Biggest Data Challenges You Might Not Know You Have: Turning Data into Real-Time Decisions

We all know that when making big decisions, the more informed you are the better. That’s why businesses collect data in the first place, to empower informed decision making. But with the growth in data reserves and the speed with which we do businesses, too many professionals aren’t making decisions using all the data. One of the biggest data challenges you might not know you have is how to turn data and insights into easily understandable action items in real time.

It is very likely that all the information needed to help make great decisions is lurking somewhere in your company’s ever-growing data storage. Most companies have invested in powerful discovery and analytics software, but how do you explain the results of the analysis? For many the answer is data visualization or a manually written report. This is not scalable, fast enough, affordable enough, or practical enough. There is simply too much data, too little time, and too few data experts. So how can you begin to approach the problem of turning piles of data into the right decisions in a way that everyone can understand? Here are three things to consider:

1.Real-time Data is only Valuable with Real-Time Insight and Explanations

More than ever, you need to be able to access and refresh your data in real time. Even if you have state-of-the-art technology, what use is it if your data is out of date? It’s like reverting back to the old paper file cabinet. Data visualization tools are part of the answer here but you need advanced systems that offer narrative explaining the analysis.

2.Smart Data Discovery

Following from the previous point, what use is flexibility if you don’t really know what you want or need to look at? This is where tools like IBM Watson and other smart data discovery tools can help. These tools are essentially powerful search engines that allow you to find a “needle in a haystack” as IBM put it.

3.Linguistic User Interface

Broadly, one of the biggest data challenges you might not know you have is: how do you explain the insights from data in a way that is understandable to everyone not just expert data scientists? A combination of charts and text is needed, something succinct, clear, and highly explanatory. There is no room for ambiguity, poorly generated text, or charts that are difficult to interpret. You need a comprehensive approach that harnesses the power of data visualization and explains the results along with the next steps in perfect English (or whatever language).

The biggest data challenges you might not know you have are not necessarily the most complex to fix. There are great solutions available today that automate real-time analytics, data discovery, and integrate with natural language generation to build a linguistic user interface. Having the right set of tools will put the bad old days of disorganized data and old dusty filing cabinets behind you.