Locating and refining the black gold of the digital economy

LOCATING oil is tougher than it looks. Geologists interpret rock surfaces and soil types via a combination of shallow drilling, satellite imagery, gravity methods or seismology. It's a long and complicated process. Refining crude oil for commercial use is not simple either. It requires large scale industrial complexes that involve many different processing units and auxiliary facilities such as utility units and storage tanks.

Data is the new oil. Yet, it seems elusive to many. Except for a handful of resource-blessed countries, not all of us are sitting on gallons of oil reserves. Similarly, large organisations have terabytes of golden nuggets of precious data, but not SMEs. However, this doesn't mean that SMEs should ignore their data. Instead, it's critical for SMEs to procure the resources to refine this black gold and turn raw data into coveted, actionable insights.

Here are the three widely-held misconceptions about data by SMEs that should be put to rest forever:

SMEs don't have big data

In our interactions with SMEs, the number one misconception is that big data is for larger organisations and they do not have enough data or a smaller customer base. However, the smaller data sets that SMEs have at their disposal contain the same information and fundamental insights regardless of company size.

Rather than worry about sample sizes, SMEs should instead realise that they have plenty of existing data from numerous touch points, devices and assets. For example, an e-commerce player can get copious amounts of data simply from looking at customer behaviour at check-out stage - the items selected and discarded, navigation steps taken, time spent to complete specific actions, the precise point of abandonment - these provide valuable insights into ways to boost customer engagement and increase conversion.

Big data is too overwhelming and complicated to understand

Data is growing at an unprecedented scale and can be retrieved from a rapidly growing number of external sources such as external social channels, machine-to-machine, sensors, voice-activated devices, as well as Internet of Things. While the sheer amount of can overwhelm, there is no need to analyse entire data sets in detail and get stuck in analysis paralysis.

The trick is to know what questions to ask, in order to isolate the data that is the most relevant in achieving business goals. For example: Who are my most valuable customers? Why are they coming or not coming to me? Why are my employees satisfied or not? Furthermore, most data analytics software today provide visualisation tools that transform data into graphics that can be digested at a glance and used in presentations. Deploying AI will also go a long way in automating processes of categorising data from multiple sources and achieve efficiency, accuracy and free up the team to focus on more strategic priorities instead of being caught up with data complexity.

Data analytics are only for MNCs

Majority of SMEs hold the belief that sophisticated tools to analyse data takes too much time, are costly and exclusive to large businesses. In an IDC study that was commissioned by SAP, we found that only 5.5 per cent of SMEs in the region have taken the steps to leverage data insights.

However, tools for data analytics today have never been better and more importantly, affordable - giving SMEs the capabilities to operate similarly to large enterprises and transforming them into smart enterprises.

With a cloud-based solution, data analytics software establishes a continuous connection between data points and analytics tools. With this, SMEs will receive timely and relevant data, empowering them to make informed decisions in a shorter span of time. They can also better anticipate and act fast on future opportunities because of the predictive ability of data analytics software. Best of all, a secure 24/7 environment is created for authorised employees to access data or insights whenever and wherever they are.

In fact, SMEs and start-ups are at an advantage with their smaller size, which allows them to be more agile in responding to the intelligence from data and make changes much faster than a large organisation.

CrowdFarmX, a Singaporean blockchain farming cooperative, exemplifies this reality. In an effort to increase global food security and safety, CrowdFarmX, part of the Netatech Group of companies, established a digital core platform to speed up its goal of on-boarding 10 million farmers in Asia onto its platform in the next 22 years. A digital core is crucial in analysing the immense volume of data generated. Using predictive analytics, CrowdFarmX is able to optimise growth as it expands rapidly across the region and assist farmers in raising their net yield by up to 10 times through modern farming strategies and tools like IoT and blockchain technology.

Data is knowledge, and knowledge is power in today's digital economy. It is imperative for businesses, large or small, to evaluate critical data on employees, customers, competitors, partners, and suppliers in order to birth the ultimate game plan and obtain an unparallelled a competitive edge.

SMEs need to get the most value of their data beyond spreadsheets. The power to collect and turn data into the right insights is not out of reach for SMEs. In many cases, it is all the difference between profit gain and revenue loss.