There are several challenges faced by firms looking to implement a data management strategy in order to improve their operations. Two of the biggest are determining which data to focus on and getting team members to start using the private equity solutions that support the strategy.
Data isn’t just for statisticians—it’s a valuable resource that everyone in a firm can and should take advantage of.. But before they can, decision-makers have to look at the big picture regarding the data that’s needed to support better, faster decisions. What information is available? How much of it is available? How will obtaining it help our teams work more efficiently and/or effectively?
The good news is that contrary to what many firms think, you don’t need a data scientist on staff or an internal IT department to effectively leverage data. You just need private equity solutions designed for that purpose.
It’s also helpful to have answers to a few key questions:
What are some roadblocks, pitfalls, or strategies to avoid when looking for private equity solutions?
One problem that firms encounter when looking for private equity solutions is simply implementing a tool to create charts. Charts and dashboards are important, no doubt about it, but ensuring that you can produce them is just one aspect of a comprehensive data strategy. You need a robust solution that enables you to collect, manage, and prepare the data that’s used to generate charts and other visuals.
When an organization finds that it may have a data problem, how does it determine which data could help users work more effectively?
When it becomes clear that your firm’s lack of data management tools and strategy is a problem, it’s important to step back before making any decisions about private equity solutions and ask the question, “What data do we need?”—paying special attention to how you define “need.” If your answer to the question is, “We need every type of data that’s available,” you’re likely to end up burning a significant amount of time and effort in the pursuit of data that doesn’t produce a good return on your investment.
To define your specific needs, first identify the types of problems you’re having: Procedural? Systemic? Operational? The more clarity you get on your pain points, the easier it is to identify the data that can help you alleviate them.
“What data don’t we have yet?” is another important question to ask. You may actually have more information than you realize, and simply aren’t capitalizing on it. An effective data strategy rarely is focused entirely on getting data you don’t have—it’s about maximizing the value of what you do have and supplementing that data by capturing or obtaining additional information.
You’ve invested in private equity solutions: How do you get your team to use them?
The most powerful, purpose-built, private equity solutions do your firm no good if nobody is using them or if they’re being used half-heartedly or ineffectively. And the answer isn’t to provide more dashboards and other visuals.
Again, those kinds of things are very important, but both your users and outside stakeholders are smart people—they quickly recognize shallow, valueless visuals when presented with them. You’ve got to create a solid foundation for your data-driven strategy by making wise decisions about how you’ll obtain, warehouse, normalize, and transform your data. Then the visuals you generate will be highly impactful.
One of the best ways to solve the adoption problems that are common with private equity solutions is to make your system the one-stop-shop for all your firm’s data needs. When you make it easy for authorized users to get to your centralized data source, and ensure that accessing it is worth their time and effort, you’ll start to see them going back to it again and again.
Solutions like Altvia Answers, for example, reward users by providing them with real-time, self-service access to the information they need to work more efficiently and effectively. When you save someone time and help them achieve their objectives with more clarity and less stress, you can bet they’ll keep coming back!
Using Private Equity Solutions to Power You Toward Your Goals
Ultimately, the hurdles you face in finding the right solutions to support your data strategy are easier to get over than they may seem. And once you do, your path is clear and you can accelerate toward each of the finish lines out in front of you!
