Not All Data is Created Equally: How Your App Developers Can Determine Your Highest Value Data

3 min read
Jun 8, 2020

Organisations generate boundless quantities of data throughout the years. Analysing these datasets is essential in order for your app developers to create apps that directly impact the success of your company. However, in today’s highly digitalised world, there are seemingly endless amounts of data meandering around the Internet, much of which is of little worth to developers. Not all data has the same value to your company, and to create apps that cater to your most pressing needs, it’s important to understand which datasets offer the most critical information.

Prioritising data allows you to save time, while creating better apps for your company.

What Constitutes High Value Data?

With all of the data that accumulates throughout the years, it’s essential to prioritise high-value data, so it can be organised and safeguarded from tampering. The most critical forms of data for organisations are documents, such as word and excel, as well as emails. Any documents or emails that were created or used within the last 90 days are of particular importance. While some businesses are tempted to clean up their inbox by deleting read emails, this can compromise useful datasets. According to Imation, a storage and data security company, most organisations archive data for over 6 years, and they regularly reference between 9 and 24 percent of that data.

The Subjective Nature of High Value Data

While some datasets are considered more useful than others, the quality of data largely depends on the goals and objectives of your organisation. To determine which datasets are most imperative to your company’s app development, ask yourself a few simple questions.

What data is available in real-time? Real-time data is more useful than older datasets, because it provides insight into the current successes and failures of your company, allowing you to assess the data most pertinent to present and future progress.
Who does the data affect? Consider the long-term ramifications of the dataset and who is affected. Does it affect the whole organisation or just a certain department? Are customers impacted by the data? Datasets that influence the customer experience or the entire organisation are the highest priority.
What kind of impact could the data create? Think about how the data could be analysed and applied to your company or society as a whole. Does this data provide information that could significantly benefit your company in the future? Could your app developers utilise and apply this data to create tools for your organisation? If you’re unable to think of ways the data could be used to advance the goals of your organisation, then it’s likely of low value.
How easily can the data be accessed? Some data is trapped away in embedded systems and nearly impossible for businesses to access and utilise. With the plethora of data available to your organisation, spending crucial minutes accessing hard-to-obtain data is a waste of time and resources.

If accessing the data is like finding a needle in a haystack, it likely isn’t worth the effort. 

 
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After answering these questions, it should be easy to identify the data that contains the greatest value to your company. This data can then be analysed by your app developers to help them envision and build tools that will advance the goals of your company.

How to Protect High Value Data

Once you’ve determined the most valuable data to your company, it’s essential to implement a plan to keep that data safe. Data can be compromised by disasters, computer malfunctions, tampering, hacking, and corruption. The most common approach to safeguarding data is by backing it up to external hard drives and creating duplicates of all datasets. Additionally, routinely update all computer software to minimise the potential of malfunctions.

High value data can provide businesses with useful insights into the most effective aspects of their current business strategy, while helping them prepare for the future. With the use of high value data, app developers can determine the greatest needs of your company, and design apps that are tailored to your precise goals. To build apps that will enhance your customer service, improve workplace efficiency, and strengthen your business, contact us today.

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