You’re Wasting Your Time Analyzing the Wrong Data

Everything about your business success and strategic direction can be found within the data you have available, thanks to the various tools and platforms that collect it for you. Among those data points are both internal and external sources of information that can prove useful to you. However, most businesses rely on the internal data they collect versus the external data they can also tap.

This approach is wrong, and it has many businesses wasting their resources. Here’s why.

Internal sources of data come from what a business controls. This includes what you have on your cloud-based platforms and computer systems. You can find it in the form of transactional and point-of-sale data, as well as through business applications like CRM systems and device sensors attached to any type of Internet of Things devices.

Today, companies and executives are focused on mining internal data. They pore over last month’s financials and last year’s results, all of which offer historical information. That’s because the data is typically easy to collect, which is one of the reasons that businesses focus so much on this information without paying attention to optimized analytics. Many businesses also believe this information is more relevant to creating a business or marketing strategy. While there are benefits — like collecting insights about customers and prospects — there are also problems with relying solely on this data.

To gain a competitive advantage, you need to do more than simply find the answers to customer-related questions that need to be addressed. Most importantly, what your customers do and how they act relates directly to what’s going on within the external data, which is related to economic, government, social, legal, and environmental forces. If you’re not looking at these external forces and what’s going on with them, there’s no way you can truly predict what your customers will do.

By only focusing on your internal data, you’re resorting to a reactive approach rather than being proactive in addressing the issues on the horizon for your audience. Imagine being able to deliver solutions to your audience members and customer base, even before they completely realize they need them — or as a just-in-time solution that beats your competition to the punch.