Big Data Impacts Every Part of Your Business. Is Your Staff Ready?

The only people in your organization who need to worry about big data are the folks in the IT department, right? Wrong. Big data impacts nearly every aspect of business from customer care to human resources, and it is critical that everyone understands how to work with big data if you want your team members to succeed, no matter what business you are in.

“Data tells a story, and charts paint a picture; if you take the time to validate the data and engage leadership, then decisions and work flows can improve with great efficiency and result in true transformation!”

Big Data Means Nothing Without People

Data is just numbers. It means nothing until human beings look at it, analyze it, make judgments about it and take action. The big data team can only take information so far.  An informed workforce that can take the data provided to them and create meaningful action is a productive workforce.

Workers at all levels need to be able to ask thoughtful questions of their data. The numbers can show that certain items aren’t selling, for example, but only by asking thoughtful questions can the marketing team drill down to the reason why. Knowing where to look and how to look can reveal that a price point is too high, that items aren’t being merchandised well, or that the market is simply not open to that particular product.

Does this mean that every employee from upper management to entry-level needs to be trained in advanced mathematics and analytics? Of course not.  But employees in every department should be able to work with basic dashboards, should understand how data can impact their work and should be able to look at data and understand what it means without asking someone else to interpret it.

Big Data Goes Far Beyond What IT Teams Can Do

The technical team doesn’t understand how call center data impacts the company at large. They just know how to find it, organize it and get it to the right people. They don’t know the “whys” and “hows” and “what ifs” behind the numbers.  It is crucial that team members at every level have a keen understanding of how data can impact their work and what questions they need to be asking in order to get answers and results.

When the workforce is committed to working with big data, it means everyone, at every level can make better choices on the job. It can save the company millions of dollars a year by taking the guesswork out of marketing, customer service, production, purchasing, supply chain management, accounting, etc.

Not everyone on every team will embrace or fully understand big data, but there should be one or two team members in every department, regardless of the industry you’re in, who can cultivate the skills needed to uncover critical insights.

In order to make big data truly work for your organization, you need to hire people with a unique combination of tech savvy, expertise in their field, and natural curiosity.  If you are looking for talented staff for your office to help you get the more from your data, reach out to the recruiting experts at CSS today.