HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA

INTO A MONEY MAKER

A GUIDE ON BUILDING STRONG USE CASES,

EXTRACTING AND USING YOUR DATA
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 1

You see zeros and ones, we see a goldmine. Data is hugely

powerful for businesses in Marketing, Sales, Procurement,
you name it.

At Data , we help our clients bring data together from lots of

sources. This can be really complex and involve external
sources too, depending on your use cases. In this handy
guide, we will share with you data tips and know-hows on:

1. Building strong use cases with your data

2. Extracting your data
3. Analysing your data
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 2

PART ONE: BUILDING A STRONG USE CASE

S a a da a p ojec i ho ong objec i e and o ll be in o ble Luckily for you,

o f iendl neighbo hood da a h b i he e o help In o fi g ide e ll ho o
how to build kick-ass use cases and win at the data game.
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 3

STEP 1: GET SOME PERSPECTIVE

First things first forget the data.

Sa e ba ic Wha i i ha o d like o kno Wha a e he q e ion o an

answered? The ones you might be asked by your stakeholders, distributors and
customers. These could include:

How can we grow?

How can we cut costs?
How can we improve customer service?
How can we become more efficient?

And ha a e o ing o achie e If o e e plo ing o c ome da a fo e ample

o ll kno if o p ima goal i o

find new clients

grow existing clients
retain current clients

So, focus on this goal first.

HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 4

STEP 2: TRACK YOUR PERFORMANCE

The e no hing o e han kno ing o e done a g ea job i ho being able o p o e

it. Think about how you can measure your success. Consider your business priorities and
your key performance indicators.

These could be:

Revenue-focused
Sales-based
Cost-related
Customer-based
Satisfaction-based

E e b ine model diffe en o consider the levers you can pull to make a
demonstrable impact on business success. Think about where your revenue comes from
and how it can increase or decrease. Think about your costs and consider whether the
bulk of costs are spent on people, technology or property.

Focus on the performance trackers that matter, so that the use case will have a real-world
impact on your business, and not just look pretty.
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 5

STEP 3: THINK ABOUT YOUR USERS

Who will use your data tools? You need to design solutions that work for them.

A an e ample a ool ha de igned fo he Boa d and C-Suite will need to be very

diffe en o a ool ha de igned fo a hand -on operations manager.

Think about how the users will use the tool:

What questions will they want answered?

Will they want to explore the data or just see the end results?
Will they access it every day or just now and again?
How often will they want to see updates?
How far back will they want to see historical trends?

The answers to these questions will impac he de ign of he da a ool o i impo an o

understand the expectations and requirements of your business users.
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 6

STEP 4: TELL A STORY WITH YOUR DATA

People love a good old story. It provides context, insight, interpretation all the things
that make data meaningful and analytics more relevant and interesting. So when you
come to building your use cases, develop hypotheses or stories that you can test with the
data.

Think abo o e and he end he ll an o see. Then start building your story:

Imagine if we could identify areas of underperformance or untapped business

opportunities
Imagine if we could identify areas for potential revenue increase
Imagine if we could predict future business performance
Imagine if e co ld c ea e a ne da a ool fo o di ib o o e
to compare their sales/purchases to other distributors
to show sales/purchases by customer demographic/location/type
to predict future sales/purchases

I c cial o nde and ha o b siness users will be interested in so you design a

ool ha ef l and al ed b hem

Finally, to bring this all together and help you spot opportunities for data quickly, get all of
the 4 steps to data use-case bliss down on one page using the Data 3 Data Map on the next
page and plan your use cases like a pro.
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 7
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 8

PART TWO: EXTRACTING YOUR DATA

Befo e an i e ell a g ea o he ll e ea ch a opic in ide and o befo e ping

their first word - i he ame i h e pe da a i ali e Wi h p po e and ca e he ll
extract the right data, in the right way, to make sure they can tell a great story with it.

He e ep o do i igh :
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 9

STEP 1: DEFINE THE DATA YOU NEED

Don e ac e e field f om e e da aba e f om e e b ine a ea o o ll d o n

in data. It is important to only extract the fields you require and the frequency of data you
need.

You need the Goldilocks amount of data not too little. O he i e o on be able o
answer the business questions. But not too much, otherwise your dashboard will be slow
and cumbersome. You need just the right amount of data. You can get this right by only
extracting the data you need to answer your specific business use cases.

Take a look at the types of data SMEs were putting into good use acccording to our 2019 SME survey.

Remember you can also source data from outside of your business including:

free publicly available data

data from your business partners, distributors or customers
buying in third-party data
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 10

STEP 2: COLLATE AND EXTRACT

This is a tricky thing to get right. You could be extracting data from numerous internal and
external sources of all different types, sizes and complexity. You could have different
levels of data quality in terms of completeness of data or consistency of data formats.

Gene all he mo e o ce o e looking o combine he mo e effo and e o end o

occur. So the trick is, again, to only focus on fulfilling the business requirements. Try to be
lean with the data you extract. The more you prepare and spend time on step 1, the easier
the extraction will be.
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 11

STEP 3: GIVE YOUR DATA A HEALTH CHECK

Wi ho a do b once o da a e a e oge he o ll find e o So ha o ll need i

a repeatable process to cleanse, enrich and combine data sources together. When we
work with client data, we give it a full health-check o make e e e ecei ed ha e
ho gh e o ld We ll in pec field fo ma and comple ene We ll hen me ge da a
o ce efo ma field and ma ch da a o i acc a e and ele an

We o k in a c ed a aking o clien da a h o gh i a e men We hen

calculate the health of their data and provide a KPI to show areas in need of focus.

1. Data Completeness: We check data is complete and there are minimal missing cells
2. Da a Uniq ene We make e he e a en d plica e
3. Data Timeliness: We check data is not out-of-date
4. Data Validity: We confirm data is in the correct format and within the expected
range
5. Data Accuracy: We check data is representative of reality
6. Data Consistency: We ensure fields are the same in different databases

Worried you have data all over the place?

We e ed o o king i h da a f om m l iple databases and applications. We wrangle

with all file types and specialise in integrating data sources so insight can be drawn from a
ingle place He e a li of ha e commonl ok ih
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 12

PART THREE: ANALYSING YOUR DATA

Now that o e e ong b ine objec i e and angled i h o da a o make e

i acc a e and ele ant, here comes the super important part the analysis of your
da a To do i igh o ll need o kno he diffe en a o can lice and dice your
data. Whichever method you choose, think back to your business use case and what
o e hoping o ge f om o da a

In this part of the guide, we will talk you through:

Descriptive analytics
Predictive analytics
Prescriptive analytics
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 13

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS – INSIGHT INTO THE PAST

In many ways the most basic form of analysis, descriptive analytics looks at how your
business has performed in the past based on simple variables. For example, how many
customers bought a certain type of product. Or which customers bought the least or the
greatest n mbe of p od c I ba ic ff b i can ill be po e f l

To get the most from descriptive analytics, you can mix one variable with another to tell a
story. For example, if your business use case is to generate 100 leads in Q1, look at two
things. Look at the number of leads you generated after your recent Christmas campaign.
Then look at how many leads you generated after you launched a new series of banner
ads. By comparing the two variable o da a begin o pain a pic e of ha o king
and ha no

Example of descriptive analytics. Source: Chapter 20— Big Book of Dashboards

In the example above you can see a dashboard that shows complaints logged in the past.
This is broken down by those that have been resolved and those that are still open.

Filters can be applied to narrow down complaints by month, state or party. You can also
see a count of the reasons for the complaints, again broken down by resolved and open.
Using this dashboard, a user can learn from past behaviours and understand how they
migh infl ence f e o come Wha i on do ho e e i ac all predict future
complaints.
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 14

PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS – UNDERSTANDING THE FUTURE

The buzz word that pops up again and again. Predictive analytics is using past data to
predict what will happen in the future. By picking out patterns where history repeats itself,
o e able o fo eca e en and plan acco dingl Yo can ho ec ence in a n mbe
of ways: markers, overlays, time frames, layers, aggregates, etc. This saves you from
plotting each individual point and helps people see patterns quicker.

Predictive analytics is often tied up with AI and machine learning because you can feed
historical data into a mathematical model that finds patterns and trends in your old data.
This same model can then be applied to your current data to automatically predict what
will happen next.

Whilst it all seems flashy predictive analytics is nothing new. Our founder, Hels, started
her career at the Met Office, home of predictive analytics in the form of everyday weather
forecasts. Back in the day, Hels and the team were using weather data to predict grocery
ale a he UK op pe ma ke Thi a a befo e p edic i e anal ic and AI e e
buzzwords.

Example of predictive analytics. Source: Tableau Public

The line chart above shows sales over four years, along with a forecast for future sales into
the next year. Using both estimated and actual sales figures, the chart also includes a
trend line which predicts future average values.
HOW TO TURN YOUR DATA INTO A MONEY MAKER 15

PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS – ADVISE ON POSSIBLE OUTCOMES

If p edic i e anal ic a k he q e ion ha mo likel o happen ba ed on m

c en da a p e c ip i e anal ic a k ha can I do o change ha o come

Prescriptive analytics is arguably one of the more complicated methods of analysis. Often,
it will rely on AI and machine learning to access the impact of multiple future decisions
and then provide a scenario for the best outcome. Done well, and prescriptive analytics
can be used by analysts to foresee if a change will help them reduce risks, improve
operations, and/or increase revenue. In short, it can revolutionise business practice.

Example of prescriptive analytics: What would happen if we changed the minimum

wage? Source: Chapter 4 — Big Book of Dashboards

In the example above, you can see how many employees in different sectors would fall
below the minimum wage if it rose. It also shows in monetary terms how much it would
cost each sector if the minimum wage was increased. There is an option to play with the
top left filter to see the effect that a rising minimum wage and years of service has on the
number of those falling below minimum wage.
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