When bad data management costs businesses $3.1 trillion every year, it makes sense that you want to know how you can better manage your business data. After all, you need more data than ever to run companies. You can’t afford to have bad data that’s hard to find.
Having a great data management strategy is essential for the success of your business. Below are five tips that will help you achieve better data management.
1. Create a Structure
The last thing you want is all your essential files thrown into a single folder. Doing things this way is a nightmare when you try to track down what you need.
Structure your data in a folder or database to make it easier to find the information you need. This will make things more easily searchable and reduce the amount of time you spend looking through your files.
2. Comply With the Law
Now that businesses are storing more and more sensitive information, governments are starting to get involved. It’s up to you to protect your employees and customers from common cyber threats. That’s why there are now laws that govern how you manage data.
Look into the data management practices laid out to you by your government. Make sure you do everything you can to comply with those laws so you don’t get in trouble in the future.
3. Manage Data Access
Even if you comply with all the data laws possible, that still doesn’t mean that all your employees should have access to all your data. Even with an excellent cybersecurity setup, there’s always the chance that a hacker breaches your defenses.
If an employee has access to all your data, your whole company is at risk. However, if you limit the data your employees can see to only what they need, that damage becomes limited.
4. Create Backups
All the data in the world isn’t worth anything if you can easily lose it. While technology has come a long way and is now very reliable, that doesn’t mean it will never fail. That’s where backups come into play.
You can use backup software to store your essential files in an external location. Doing this means you can quickly and easily restore any file you lose because of mistakes or hardware failures.
5. Add Advanced Searching
Even if you have a great organizational system, searching will slow down when you have a lot of data. That’s why improving your search functions is essential to an excellent data storage system.
One of the best ways you can test searching is by including search time in your ways to calculate productivity. The more time your team spends locating data, the less time they have to handle more critical tasks.
Better Data Management Takes Work to Plan
You can’t just throw your data on a hard drive and be done with it when managing business data. You need a better data management strategy to store and use your information effectively. Use the tips above to do things the right way.