For many organisations the data they collect is their lifeline. Their business strategies and product positioning are steered by the data they collect from the field on a day-to-day basis. The field data they collect will be very rough, and it has to be processed to turn it into useful and intelligible business information. The entire cycle of data collection, data processing and data interpretation is a highly complicated process with many hidden challenges. Organisations spend a considerable amount of time, money and resources on these activities.
The first challenge comes in the form of having an adequate team to gather data. Secondly, the organisation should know how to source the required data and which channels should be accessed to compile the data. This will vary from one industry to another; what works for one company may not be the best solution for another. Each organisation has to identify the best sources of data for their respective industries and for their respective niches. You must however, remember that the entire process of data collection in itself will be a time consuming process. Many companies try to outsource data mining needs to third party companies but there are many disadvantages in this approach, including security breaches and confidentiality issues. Taking this one step further, if you are a data mining company yourself, you are forced to handle the task yourself as data mining is your core functionality.
The next part of the challenge is data processing. Here again you will need a large back office team that works on the data compiled by your field officers. Here many challenges crop up such as timeline issues, depending on the volume of the data to be processed, and data accuracy issues. You can easily skip this part and save a lot of time, money and organisational resources by using PDA forms, digital forms or mobile forms.
If you use mobile forms or digital forms, you will not require two teams to go over the same data. The entire process can be completed just with the help of a single team. You will be able to save over 50% of your organisational time on data collection and the data processing cycle. This will also minimise the issues with data accuracy. Data as collected will be available to the entire organisation directly in digital form.
Managing a back office team can turn out to be a challenging and expensive task as you need to provide them with the required infrastructure and a comfortable work environment. With commercial rental space becoming more expensive day by day, accommodating a large back office team would force you to rent a bigger area, which again will add on to your overhead costs.
It is not without reason that many organisations are investing their money to create digital forms and to create web forms. The little investment they make in this area goes a long way in saving money in the long term.
