Heavy duty enterprises with large-scale operations that take products or services across the country or even around the world have more data than they know what to do with. If your business has such scope, and yet you’re still asking yourself simple questions like why your transport sector takes so long or why production costs are so high, then you need to stop and strategize.
You need to adopt a data fabric solution.
Why You Need to Invest in Data Fabric Solutions
Data fabric is, in simple terms, a dedicated data architecture software solution that pulls in all those little bits of data that you acquire across your operations. The data you collect, from the factory floor all the way to each of your customer’s doors, is invaluable because it helps you really understand your business on the next level.
Using your own data to make better decisions in the future should be the go-to approach for every business, and how well you implement this approach will impact how successful you are going forward. A report from Forrester even estimates that companies that effectively manage and use their data for analysis have outperformed their less data-abled competition by $1.8 trillion.
In the world of economics and cost-effectiveness, this number is huge. You may be wondering why it’s so large, so let’s get into it:
The Cost of Leaving Your Data As Is
To really understand the economic benefits of a data fabric solution, you first need to understand the hidden costs of leaving your information where it is.
Wasted Resources
Duplication, half-saved drafts, notes, unneeded information, and more end up clogging your system – and storing this data is costly. You need to either pay for the hardware (and electricity to power it) or the increased storage space if you use cloud-based systems. In most cases, it will be both.
Delays in Decision Making
If it’s difficult to compile the information that you need, or you consistently miss information when using analytical or AI tools, then decisions inevitably end up either delayed or (even worse) you end up making decisions without the full picture. Every decision in a large-scale enterprise can either make you money or lose you money, so when it comes to using your data to extract actionable insights, you want it to be highly accurate and fast.
Reduced Productivity
When data is dispersed, your employees and even systems will inevitably be less productive than they could be with a data fabric. When time is money, and every second counts, it’s imperative that you invest in solutions that naturally increase productivity.
How Data Fabric Helps With These Issues
Data fabric can absolutely help increase uptime, minimize storage costs, and speed up decision making. With a robust solution at your side, you can steer your business towards a new era, all because you’ve made better use of your information.
Now, having a data fabric solution can help in countless ways, so this list is far from extensive. To give you a taste, however, here are just a few ways that data fabric can help your business:
Helps R&D Come Up With Winning New Products or Services
When you sell products or services, it is critical that you continue to invest in ongoing research and development. You need to keep pace with the times, and you also need to direct the flow of trends while you are at it. When all of your customer data is pulled from every source into a single silo, you can use that information more readily to track trends, interests, and even needs so your R&D department can craft new, innovative products or solutions that speak to your customers.
Optimizes Your Marketing Campaigns
User data can also be used to improve marketing campaigns by putting all user behavior, industry reportage, and sales information into the same destination. With a more effective marketing strategy and the possibility of automating campaigns, you can save big while increasing the chances of drawing in new audiences.
Forecast Trends
Most events in the world can be tracked with data. While there’s no way to 100% predict the future, if you have a heavy-duty enterprise with endless amounts of data, you can absolutely make some pretty great guesses on how things like consumer behavior, interests, and the like are going. In order to forecast trends of your data, however, you need a fully formed data fabric solution in place. Otherwise, you’ll be taking shots in the dark.
