Modern technology has had a massive effect on the amount of data we produce, and it’s no wonder it is such a commonly discussed thing in the media. Of course, there are positives and negatives to all this data, and as business owners, we can use this to our advantage, but it can also be a major weakness.
Having access to certain types of data can be a great burden. You have the responsibility to look after peoples’ data and this can be very difficult, so if you’re experiencing the negative impacts of data, you want to make sure you’re maximizing the positive impacts that data can have.
Being able to collect large amounts of data allows you to look at your business from many different viewpoints, but you need people who know how to interpret the data. If your employees have qualifications such as Six Sigma from Six Sigma Philadelphia Training, then you can start to use statistics to improve your business in lots of different areas.
One area where statistical analysis can be particularly important is in measuring your company’s performance. We’ve all got plans we want to implement and goals we are working to, but without being able to interpret data, it is hard to tell how we are performing against those goals.
When we make changes to our business, we need to know if those changes are working out as we expected and a great way to do this is by using statistics.
We all want to spot the next big trends before anyone else does. Often there are clues that can tell us about future trends that are hidden away in the huge amount of data that we have at our disposal, but we just don’t know how to spot them.
Take a question as simple as “what color is going to be the in color of next summer?” There are lots of different data sets that you can use to help you make a more informed decision. However, you need someone who knows what data to look for and where to find it.
When you’re developing a new product, you want to know that there’s a market for it and that it’s got a good chance of selling. In order to do this, you’ve got to undertake market research which means understanding what data you need to obtain and how to interpret that data.
Statistical analysis plays a huge part in market research and can be the difference between a great product release and a less than stellar one.
Whatever decisions you make for your business, you want to know whether the risk is likely to be worth the reward. If you can’t quantify the risk and you can’t quantify the reward, then you’re not going to be able to make an informed decision.
There are lots of answers to the questions we have buried inside the data, but you need to have people that can extract that information so you can make the best decisions possible.