Data has become a part of everyday life both in business and at home. Without data, companies struggle to cultivate effective business strategies seeing as they don’t have a firm grasp on what a new customer is worth, what the fastest-growing product lines are, how a website and social media tactics are working and where there’s room for improvement. Most of us are aware of the value of data, and the following will explore one of the common methods businesses use to manage and out to use the data they have: data engineering.
What Is Data Engineering?
Systems that are used to generate data can be widely varied within a company. There might be systems devoted to data related to billing and shipping; a secondary system might keep track of order history. A third system might be used to offer customer support or behavioral information. It’s not uncommon for a company to have all these separate data systems but still be lacking an overall view of what this information means when it is put all together. Data analysis can be a real struggle, especially if a team doesn’t have the workforce or the time to comb through all the information and draw out the useful bits. This is where data engineering comes in. With managed IT services, it allows you to focus more on your business.
Data engineering is, in the simplest sense, a support system designed to make the work of analysts and data scientists easier by compiling all the information into one place and making it easy to filter through the data depending on the question an analyst is beginning the search with. It allows for the access, transformation, and analysis of data in a user-friendly manner. A data engineer, therefore, is someone who extracts data, cleans it up, so it’s legible, and moves it to where it will be most useful within a data system. This position can overlap with data scientist roles and expectations.
Be Prepared For Things To Change
One of the most important aspects of managing your data and working with data engineers is expressing and ensuring that the choices being made with your data today aren’t going to negatively influence your work tomorrow. Because the world is changing so quickly, data systems should be prepared to pivot at a moment’s notice. Speaking to your data engineering team can help you iron out any problems with flexibility and adaptability in the future.
This should include a discussion of bills that are being discussed by local and federal government agencies as many governmental bodies are only now catching onto the value of data. It means understanding how and why the data you’re collecting will be used. This also applies to the management of your other teams too. People need to understand that what they currently need to do when entering or saving data might change in the future. Part of the training, therefore, needs to include an expression of the idea: it’s always changing.
Consider Hiring Out Of House
Maybe the data isn’t your strong suit; maybe you want to keep providing excellent services and products to your loyal customers and hand the data off to someone else. Depending on the amount of data you’re working with, you might find yourself looking at professional data engineering services, and when considering a team be sure to talk through all of your current needs and leave things open at the end for them to express to you what your future needs will likely be, depending on the trajectory your business is currently on. Speak about security and storage space as well: cloud storage offers a lot of protection against standard wear and tear as well as disasters like flooding or fires.
Security Is Vital
Speaking of security, if you’re collecting people’s data or information that pertains to anyone besides yourself (this includes customers, clients, and employees) you need to be doing your due diligence when it comes to protecting that data. It is your responsibility to keep people’s information out of the hands of cybercriminals. You may want to consider outsourcing for a Managed IT Provider.
Data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable commodity, and this means that people everywhere are trying to get their hands on it. Data can be sold on the black market, used to manipulate national elections, or used to market or advertise illegally and unfairly. Data breaches are becoming more common and are only expected to continue to grow. Couple this with the growing awareness of digital rights and privacy among the average person, and you have a very precarious situation.
People who are giving their information to you are going to learn at some point how dangerous that can be if you’re not taking your security seriously. When that happens, they’re going to want to know what you’re doing to keep them safe. Moreover, in the event that data is stolen while in your care, you’re going to have to do a lot of explaining and might even face lawsuits. It is crucial that you take the time to ask all the security questions you can relate to the data you’re collecting and where it goes when your data engineering team takes over.
Staff Training
Given how important each of the above points is, it is essential that if you want to encourage optimal data storage and use, you’re going to want to include extra elements in your standard staff training. Staff who are coming in contact with data at any stage of the pipeline need to know how to handle this information discreetly, securely, and effectively. Your data engineers will likely have a few ideas about how this can be optimized, but it’s also worth speaking to your staff about their experience. What would make their part of the pipeline smoother? Sometimes there are incredibly simple solutions that can help everyone get their work done with less stress and difficulty. Or you can simply visit company website for assistance.
The above tips should help you understand the importance of effective data engineering as well as some crucial elements of that process. You want a system that is flexible and able to adapt to changes in the future (if 2020 has taught us nothing else, it’s that things can change rapidly), protect people’s privacy and data, and present you with analytics that can be applied to your business strategy to result in more happy customers and growth for your company.
