Data, the new valuable resources.
Economists say that the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.
A century ago, oil was the most lucrative and fastest-growing industry, putting most investors’ attention and researchers in forwarding gear to investing and working in the oil-related project.
The struggle for control of oil dominated our world and often lead to war. It can make a nation extremely rich and a shortage of it can bring economic catastrophe. The world economy had been impacted severally by fluctuations in oil prices and developing countries often get more affected by the fluctuations. In the same way, businesses linked to oil have strong growth potential and many people go in for it easily.
It is safe to say that there is a new oil that is currently reshaping the world, the oil of the digital era, data. Data is the brain behind many of the transformative technologies we see today, Artificial intelligence, automation, and advanced predictive analytics.
These five world giants, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple took advantage of this and built their businesses around data. They now report billions of dollars in net profit.
Data is effectively changing the world we live in and the way that we work. If you own a business and are looking to grow, then data is crucial in helping you take the next step.
I had very little idea about the impact of data before now. My participation in the course, introduction to data analytics at Lagos Business School, (LBS) has opened my eyes to the important role data plays in our world today.
What then is data?
Data is simply a collection of different facts, including numbers, measurements, and observations, that have been translated into a format that can be processed. Useful information collected to support organizational decision-making and strategy is called data.
Data is applied in many ways.
- Data helps one to make informed decisions
Good data provide indisputable evidence, the more data you have at your disposal, the better position you are in to make good decisions and take advantage of new opportunities. It also gives you the justification and evidence to confidently back up your decisions.
- Data helps one to identify problems
Access to good data gives an organization the opportunity to identify significant problems early enough and take action to handle the situation. By utilizing data for quality monitoring, organizations can respond to challenges before they become a full-blown crisis
- Data will guide you to your expected result
Data allows organizations to measure the effectiveness of a given strategy. Collecting data will allow you to determine how well your solution is performing, and whether your approach needs to be tweaked over the long term.
- To truly implement effective solutions, you need to understand what is happening at different locations of your organization. Data helps you to achieve this. It helps you develop accurate theories to build coherent models and enables you to visualize the happenings within the organization
- You can back up your arguments and make your approach very strategic using data.
It is a key component of systems advocacy. Utilizing data will help present a strong argument for systems change and illustrating your argument using data empowers you to demonstrate why changes are needed. Also, effective data collection and analysis will guide you to direct scarce resources where they are most needed, thereby increasing efficiency.
- Data helps you identify areas of your strength.
Data analysis will support you to identify high-performing programs, service areas, and people and provide reasons to replicate these strengths across the organization.
- Organizations need to monitor the performance of their staff. Good data allows organizations to establish goals to keep moving forward. Because data allows you to measure, you will be able to establish baselines, find benchmarks, and set performance goals.
- Funding is increasingly outcome and data-driven, a shift from funding that is based on services provided to outcomes achieved. Organizations have to implement evidence-based practice and develop systems to collect and analyze data. This will enable them to make the most out of the money invested.
As managers, we must work with data as a standard tool for making decisions. Every action and step must be guided by data. It is the only way we can take effective and informed decisions. Thank God for the Data analysis course, we would not have had the knowledge that data rules the world.
References:
- https://www.c-q-l.org/resources/guides/12-reasons-why-data-is-important/
- https://www.diesel-plus.com/the-importance-of-data-collection-10-reasons-why-data-is-so-important
- https://www.grow.com/blog/data-important-business
#MEMA3
Nichonline.
Decision-making process