Why Does Your Startup Need a Data Collection Plan?

I don’t think I need to tell my average reader that businesses need to make data-informed decisions. What might surprise you, though, is that you as an entrepreneur, business owner, startup founder or executive have all the data you need at the tip of your fingers.

What you don’t have is a plan to collect, process, enrich and action that data.

My focus with my consultancy’s data collection service offering is less technical and more procedural. You don’t need to blindly grab whatever unstructured data you think might be pertinent to your industry. You need a plan of action and policies and procedures that guide execution.

Every single day, millions of gigabytes of data criss-cross the globe. Within the haystack of financial data, logistical metadata, social media posts and media streaming is the golden needle your business needs to succeed. Without a solid data collection plan and a scalable collection framework, though, the golden needles of precious data will remain buried in the chaffe.

Let’s talk about what a data collection plan looks like and how I can help empower your business or startup to make data-based decisions and thrive in the information era.

Decisions in the Dark

Data-driven decision-making seems like one of those things that’s just “a given” in the information era, but you would be surprised at seeing how frequently critical decisionmakers are flying in the dark.

I’ve seen this phenomenon at multi-billion dollar companies, security organizations and small businesses and startups alike: executives and managers making decisions without proper access to processed and enriched data.

This seems inexcusable with the wealth of knowledge at our fingertips, but the truth is more sinister than simply “Decisionmaking in the Dark.”

Data-Driven Delusion

Many startups, growing organizations, tech titans and business behemoths do not suffer from a lack of data.

If anything, they have too much.

Their problem is the Data-Driven Delusion. These businesses are suffering from a focus on data collection with no real business strategy for the proper exploitation of that data. Key stakeholders in these business’ data collection outfit can tell you down to the megabyte how much data they store and process, yet they can’t tell you a single story about how they are processing and exploiting that data to grow their business.

Why Collect, Then?

Data collection can be one of two things for your business: a brilliant tool for business empowerment and data-driven decisionmaking, or a massive const-center full of tech debt and disorganization.

The key differentiator is a data collection and exploitation plan. Deciding what data your organization needs to thrive, where it lives, how to collect, store, enrich and analyze it and how to exploit that data to further your business goals is the key factor in the success of an organization’s data collection mission.

That’s why I’m not interested in charging you thousands of dollars for a simple web scraping framework. I want to sit down with the key stakeholders of your growing business or startup and talk about your data collection plan.

Let’s grow your business with data-driven decisionmaking

Interested in finding out how a data collection framework can work to empower your small business or startup? Let’s chat.

EMail: mitch@secresearch.io

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