Turn Your Data Into Insights With 6 Expert Tips

All the data in the world is obsolete if you don’t have what it takes to derive insights that equate to actionable results. As technology evolves and the collection and use of data continues to become increasingly more prominent, it’s now more important than ever to employ skilled workers that are capable of transforming data into insights.

Insights are the key to effective decision making which is why it’s so important to be able to extract meaningful findings from raw data. In this blog, we’ll outline 6 expert tips that you can leverage to turn your data into insights including democratizing access to data, creating methodical dashboards that tell a story, connecting loosely linked datasets to derive conclusions, extracting insights from consolidated data, reviewing data assets and KPIs, and connecting internal data assets with external context.

6 Expert Tips to Start Turning Your Data into Insights:

1- Democratize Access to Analytics

Data or analytics democratization is when an organization strives to make data accessible to all employees and stakeholders while educating them on how to work with and interpret data, regardless of their technical background. This means making data and analytics accessible to all necessary parties, so everyone has the right to draw conclusions and make informed business decisions.

In order to turn data into insights within your organization, you must empower employees to gain a holistic understanding of your entire data ecosystem by making data accessible to everyone through integration and analytics tools. You can empower employees and stakeholders to interpret and leverage data by:

• Simplifying your legacy data.
• Empowering users with self-serve analytics.
• Setting up employees and stakeholders with user-friendly dashboards.
• Training employees on how to best use data to derive actionable insights.

2 – Create Dashboards That Tell a Story

Creating dashboards that tell a story is an excellent way to make your data more consumable. Chances are that the majority of employees in your organization don’t have a technical background. They may not work with data regularly, and complex reports or datasets may be confusing or even overwhelming. Leveraging dashboards with a clearly defined storyline is a great way to empower everyone within the organization to visualize insights that lead to actionable outcomes. Organizing raw data into dashboards that tell a story will help create an easy-to-understanding narrative that will help drive business decisions.

4 Must-Know Tips for Creating a Dashboard that Tells a Story:

• Choose your visualization wisely.
• Create your dashboard with your audience in mind.
• Don’t complicate your dashboard with unnecessary complexities.
• Leverage the power of storytelling and offer a powerful narrative with must-know insights.

3 – Connect Loosely Linked Datasets

Datasets can be defined as a collection of related sets of information that are composed of separate elements but can be manipulated as a unit. This means that they are similar enough to be identified as such but not the same. A dataset can also be defined as a collection of data that may be assessed individually or in combination. Assessing datasets in combination is a great way to identify patterns and draw more accurate conclusions that can be used to derive appropriate insights.  Identifying similarities is an excellent starting point that can be built upon to derive insights that help shape the future of your business.

4 – Derive Insights from Consolidated Data

There’s nothing worse than studying spreadsheet after spreadsheet in an attempt to draw conclusions. Data consolidation allows you to gather your data from separate spreadsheets and consolidate it into one master sheet that is easy to source and consume. This means combining and storing all  data in one place in an attempt to be a more effective decision maker.

The process of consolidating your data and drawing insights based on one master sheet will allow you to manipulate multiple different types of data from one point of access. After you’ve consolidated your data, you can get to work on turning your raw data into insights that drive more impactful decisions.

5 – Reviewing data assets and KPIs

KPIs provide targets for teams to aim for, milestones to gauge progress, and insights that help people across the entire organization make better decisions. A data asset is a container that holds one or more datasets and helps to provide context for the project that produced the data and together, they help organizations draw more accurate conclusions. Measuring data assets against KPIs is a great way to turn your data into actionable insights that can be used as benchmarks moving forward.

6 – Connect internal data assets with external context  

While internal data is important for extracting insights that allow you to determine how your organization is interacting with employees, the market, and consumers, external data allows you to see how your organization fits into the global landscape. Connecting internal data assets with external context is important for a variety of reasons with one of the most important being more impactful decision making. Assessing real world context as it relates to internal data assets helps add real-world context to internal decision making which is crucial to long-term success.

Turn Your Data Into Insights with Kloud9

Composed of data engineers, data scientists, architects, automation specialists, development and operations specialists, cloud engineers, program managers, and domain experts, our team of industry experts are unmatched. Together, our team of specialists work with organizations in Retail, Consumer Goods, Manufacturing, and Healthcare to leverage large amounts of data and AI to unlock transformative solutions that turn ordinary businesses into cognitively intelligent organizations. Interested in learning more about how you can turn your data into insights with Kloud9? Click here.