Your data has enormous potential for profit. However, it also presents risks to your company. Much like an oil company has to know what its potential extraction is while taking care not to cause a spill, your company has to know its data and keep it under control. The data assessment process is one of the best ways to learn more about your data and exploit it to the fullest.
1. Unearth All of Your Files
Your organization almost certainly has lots of files it doesn't even know about. Some of these could be very useful for your company. Perhaps a file you thought was lost or deleted is residing in an unusual file format or wound up in hidden folders your search tools haven't touched.
A recent survey noted that two thirds of respondents reported that at least half their data consisted of dark data. Many more predicted that number would grow since data volumes are increasing and few companies are ready for the incoming tidal wave of data. Dark data nibbles away at your bottom line and can quietly hamper your productivity.
Data assessment tools will reveal the full extent of your data, allowing you to truly know your data. Once you know your data down the kilobyte, you can start making smarter decisions about how you manage it.
2. Reduce Data Costs
One of the first decisions you should contemplate is how you store your data.Companies have rushed into the cloud without giving much thought to what data they put up there. It's a seemingly infinite storage space, but it comes at a cost. If you indiscriminately upload data to the cloud, you'll be hit with a hefty bill.
After your assessment, you'll be able to delete data with confidence, thus lowering your total data footprint. That, in turn, lowers your storage costs. Even better, pruning and trimming your total data will improve productivity since your analysts will be less likely to have to sift through files to find what they need.
3. Identify Potential Risks
Do you know if you have any files that are subject to restrictions from data privacy laws like the GDPR or CCPA? Can you say with confidence exactly how many you have? Are they properly protected? If you need more than a few minutes to answer these questions, you don't know your data well enough.
Just as your data is valuable to your organization, it's also valuable to criminals who would love nothing more than to get their hands on your customers' information. If you have unsecured files that contain sensitive information, you're putting your whole organization at risk. A thorough assessment can help you find these files and lock them down.
The cost of preventing a breach is far less than the cost of dealing with one. An assessment can put you on the track to true data security. And if a breach does occur, at least you'll be able to know what files have been touched and you can start taking action to close the breach faster.
4. Achieve Compliance Faster
It's not just data breaches you need to be concerned about, either. Compliance with data privacy laws includes proper data storage and transfer. How you handle your data is just as important as who is handling it. An assessment that factors in compliance protocols can tell you if your data is being managed according to the rules.
GDPR fines can dock your company as much as 4%of their total global turnover, while CCPA fines can exceed $7,500 per record lost. However, fines aren't even the largest cost of noncompliance. The bad press alone can result in lost business that greatly outweighs whatever a regulator could do.
5. Find New Opportunities
A data assessment isn't all doom and gloom, however. One of the positives is that you'll be able to identify new opportunities for your business. For instance, you might be able to streamline certain data management processes or improve data handling to make collaborative work easier.
When you know all your data, your analysts will be able to choose the right files and ensure quality output from BI tools.Those insights can fuel the future of your business. But they can only succeed when your data is properly identified and organized. A data assessment is a step you need to take to get to data harmony.
Aparavi's smart platform can parse all of your data and help you identify problems with your data management. Ask Aparavi for an assessment of your company's data so you can know your data