In the previous article, we introduced our
“Analytics & Development Team and Its Role in Driving Ngern Tid Lor Toward a Data-Driven Company.” Today, we have some (not-so-secret) tips for working with data to share as follows;
- Business Understanding: Business understanding is no less important than data analysis techniques. First and foremost, we must thoroughly understand our business before we can master data understanding, data preparation, data analysis or data modeling, data validation, and data visualization. At Ngern Tid Lor, we place importance on continuously training our employees to help them understand both data analysis techniques, and the business we are operating.
- Financial Benefit: Before analyzing data, we should analyze the benefit of such analysis (if the data analysis will not bring any benefit or is not worthwhile, you don’t have to waste time doing it). In addition, the benefit analysis and your understanding of the task difficulty can help you prioritize the tasks involved.
- Clearly Defined Topic: Know what you are looking for and the business or work problem you want to solve. If the topic you receive is not clear, you need to explore more deeply while considering surrounding factors.
- Do Not Neglect Other Data: It is possible that during collecting data, you may come across other interesting issues. So even though you have your topic of interest, you should not throw away the chance to dig into other issues.
- Reason for Storing Data: Considering exactly which data should be stored is important because storing any data takes time, resources, and storage space. It is a waste to store useless data. It is also a loss of business opportunity not to keep useful data.
- Build Data Linking Skills: Linking separate data that are stored separately may lead to new data.
- Data Analysis Is Not a Waterfall: Analysis does not flow from 1 to 10. At the same time, we also have to face the fact that during our progress, there may be a loop that leads us to restart from 1 or 2 again.
- Data Preparation: You should keep in mind ease of use and accessibility of data, while making sure that the personal data of your customers and employees are secure and safe.
- Synergistic and Multi-Skilled Team: Because it is difficult to find a person who possesses multiple skills, a good team should consist of members with diverse skills. Your team should also have synergy, which will help the tasks performed by each team member to achieve common goals faster.
The metaphor “data is the new oil” not only equates the value of data to that of oil, but also implies that, like oil, raw data is useless, only once it is refined and processed does it create value.