Effective data management allows companies to optimize the full use of data, respond to even as complex factors as changes in the political environment or regulatory change, and make decisions while minimizing negative impact. With the development of the Internet, modern technologies, and the free movement of goods and services, the market is changing. Today, when creating value, companies are becoming increasingly dependent on intangible assets, and data is an important part of it; therefore, its management becomes increasingly more important. This trend will continue in the future.

Criticality of CRM Data Management

Data plays a vital role in today’s business and is important in any area of business. Increasingly, it is recognized as a management tool that helps you make effective decisions, choose a successful marketing strategy, improve business processes, and perform optimization.

Data can really bring a lot of benefits to a company, but only if it is managed correctly. Otherwise, the use of data in the decision-making process will not only be useless, but can also cause a lot of damage. This can happen very easily: for example, disorderly collected data can distort the assessment of the situation, which the manager will not notice and use to make key management decisions. Such decisions will have the opposite effect than expected, and will start a chain reaction that will require a lot of resources to be stopped.

On the other hand, institutions are increasingly interfering in data management. For example, the well-known General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets out certain data management guidelines to be followed. These guidelines are further elaborated in National Law and failure to comply with the requirements leads to legal liability. Thus, messy data poses a threat of direct damage too.

We must not forget that the amounts of data are growing by leaps and bounds. This is another threat that raises the critical need to ensure proper data management. While smaller amounts of data are easier to deal with and relatively few errors are found in them, as the amount of data grows, so do error rates.

CRM System – an Investment in Data

Of course, simply keeping the data in a CRM system does not guarantee its proper management, but it is a good start and a big step forward. In addition, modern CRM systems meet the requirements of GDPR, so at least you will be able to forget about this problem because data management, after the functionality is formed, will be automatic.

The use of a CRM system in the field of data management offers many advantages. But the essential difference is that all data is stored in one safe place, data relationships can be monitored, and necessary data can be easily accessed.

It is also extremely useful that CRM systems allow the user to make certain modifications and standardize data. If we were to remember the use of spreadsheets to store data, there were many problems with them. Standardized data is easier to process, report, and manage in general.

Data Management Strategy

If you want to maintain an up-to-date and useful database, you need a data management strategy. But if you already have it, do not jump for joy too soon – the strategy needs to be evaluated from time to time and timely changes need to be made.

First of all, evaluate what data is really important now and will be important in the future. If that future is a decade from now, do not rush to collect data today: it will become obsolete and useless, so you will simply waste resources on collecting it.

Let’s look at an example of a sales team that plays a key role in generating revenue in most businesses. When thinking about sales professionals, it is important to provide them with relevant information that will help them sell and avoid unnecessary information as it will simply waste time. Shopping time, cart, and the amount spent – accumulate what is really useful.

Data Cleaning

Information ages rapidly and this process is only accelerating as data flows are increasing. Yes, you have spent a lot of money collecting data, it was useful in the past, but do not hesitate when the time comes to say goodbye and just delete it. Old data can sometimes be worse than no data because you will unreasonably trust the  information you have!

Various studies have confirmed that only up to 25 percent of databases used for marketing are reliable. Given that without a database marketing campaigns are virtually non-existent today, such a number is truly eloquent.

In short, there are only two solutions: the data needs to be updated or removed. Assessing goals and costs will help you decide which solution is more appropriate, but it is important to realize that you cannot just do nothing – the longer you wait, the more old data will distort reports and disrupt your business.

Help Your Employees Understand the Value of Data

No matter how much you invest in data, it will not help improve results if employees simply… do not believe it. And convincing them can be really tricky, especially if you are just starting to use a CRM system. It is important for employees to understand how data works and why the contribution of each of them is so important. Filling in data and filling it in correctly are two different things – you have to believe and trust data.

Real results will help convince employees, so do not forget to share with them what has been done. The same CRM provides access to reports and data analysis, but the manager should not be the only one to benefit from this – other employees can use this functionality to improve their work efficiency. This process can be done gradually: give department managers the opportunity to benefit, and other employees will want to use it later too. The value of data should be not only the perception of its benefits, but also its direct application.

Consider your CRM data management strategy – solutions that seem simple at first glance will help move mountains and achieve the best performance.