Our Online Dialogue colleague and insights expert Wilbert Pot has worked for Webanalists.com wrote an article with 5 tips for getting more value from data.

Web data, social data, big data: data is totally hot! But data without insight and actual action is worthless. In fact, action is essential to the evolution of an organization. Without action there is no change and without change there is no improvement.

As an analyst, you have a lot of data at hand and in fact you have gold in your hands. But how do you make sure that this gold is actually used for business decisions within your organization? Data is only information and only becomes meaningful and valuable if, at the right time and in the right form for the right person, it leads to an insight to take action.

Here are 5 tips on how to make data better fuel decisions within your organization.

1. Focus on the biggest opportunities first

Address a problem that demonstrates the value of data and provides a positive catalyst for the organization to take action.

2. Start with a business question, not data

Understand what the problem is and what insights are needed to solve the problem before you start teasing out the data. If you have a particular target audience within the organization (e.g., sales, marketing, financial), determine and understand what their problems are first. While insight has its value on its own, for many organizations and departments it is still a big driver if they can cut costs and/or your insight provides some financial benefit. This way you frame your analysis better and create focus.

3. Integrate insights so they trigger action

To create impact, we need to make information come alive. This can be done by presenting the information as a business or use case. By presenting information and your recommendations in such a way that they are also understood by non-experts, you already create more support and make follow-up actions concrete.

4. Centralize information, insights and decisions

Putting previously acquired information and insights at the center makes it possible to share it better and refer people to this place for more information. Of course, the history and new updates should be accessible to everyone. Thus, it forms a basis to support the learning process within the organization. By becoming an information hub for your organization, you create more support.

5. Put analytics and data-driven decisions on the agenda

Ask your stakeholders how you can contribute better and determine how you will translate to management level. Data-driven decisions should be a permanent part of the organization and thus on the agenda at key meetings.

The ultimate end point, of course, is a situation where data and business decisions are interdependent and even mutually reinforcing. What opportunities do you see to get data-driven decisions between the ears of your customer or organization?

Originally posted on November 14, 2012 at Webanalists.com