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Let’s face it; we live in a world of data. There’s no escape, and until there is some sort of technological apocalypse, we will continue to work with it.
We can all admit, though, that data continues to be used in truly impressive ways. Marketing departments use data to track customer lifecycle analytics, from profiling a new customer to determining the propensity to upsell an existing customer, thereby convincing someone to buy something they didn’t even know they needed. Meteorologists use data to help create ways to track weather storms, understand tornadoes, and predict upcoming seasonal trends. The medical field uses data to trend historical illnesses, and can even use predictive analytics to identify who has early onset of a disease modality to take steps to delay or prevent it from occurring. Sports uses data to calculate that one batter hits a homerun two out of every five times at bat, in the fifth inning, with cloudy skies, against a left-handed pitcher, at away games, during the month of June. The banking industry uses data to identify fraudulent transactions, and track the transfers of monetary funds. And while we find great uses for this data, it is also susceptible to being hacked by fraudsters looking to sell your information, or create more disastrous events.
The continued use of data is motivated by a common reason: money. Whether the use of data is to save money, or find ways to make more money, the end goal is the same – increase the bottom line. Using data to make money isn’t a new concept. Nor is the concept that you must provide clean data so organizations can make confident business decisions using data they trust. However, tight budgets make it very challenging for IT departments to be able to internally develop efficient ways to increase net income. It becomes difficult to progress forward when there are only enough resources to maintain the status quo.
Professional Services vs Managed Services
Outsourcing is one great way to transform you current data governance initiatives, as well as get ahead of upcoming needs, regulations and compliance mandates, and requirements. Leveraging strategic services allows for a professional, externally-viewed assessment of where your business can improve, help create a forward looking roadmap, or create a compelling business case to get a project approved.
For a significantly more resource-challenged team, managed services will enable you to advance projects while reducing risk to meet business and regulatory deadlines. In many cases, you may find that outsourcing can have a greater impact on ROI than initially calculated.
As data usage continues to grow, regulations regarding the scope of what must be monitored for data integrity will continue to grow. Budgets, however, will continue to shrink. It is necessary to become proactive in resource allocations and gaps in workforce capabilities to stay ahead of business requirements and regulatory trends. As we have all read in the news, being reactive to data issues results in negative publicity. Without having adequate time to research upcoming regulations, outsourcing to a vendor who has expertise in your business’ industry will not only save you research time, but will accelerate your deployment times while lowering risk.
As you look into the future, the end goal is once again to impact your net income while keeping your business out of the negative headlines. With limited resources, it becomes necessary to look outside the box and outsource projects and risks to a vendor that is held accountable for producing timely results on-time and on-budget. Working with a proven, experienced vendor can not only help resolve your current pain points, but help soften pain points yet to come.
