After the Big Data Deluge: The Coming Accuracy Wave

The volume of data companies are amassing each day is staggering and it’s only getting bigger. Even in our daily lives, the amount of data we are inundated with on a daily basis can be overwhelming. Factor in the velocity at which data is generated, and the variety of the content produced, and you have yourself a whole lot of useless information if you do not know how to sift through it.Ironically, the quantity of data that is produced and available is INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL to its utility. Said plainly, the more hay in the stack, the harder to find the needle! In spite of this, companies continue to find new and exciting ways to mine the data avalanche with slick tools and dashboards. The CRM vendors have never had it better! However, smart organizations are recognizing the opportunity to improve the accuracy of all that data they have been collecting for years.

Ironically, the quantity of data that is produced and available is INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL to its utility. Said plainly, the more hay in the stack, the harder to find the needle! In spite of this, companies continue to find new and exciting ways to mine the data avalanche with slick tools and dashboards. The CRM vendors have never had it better! However, smart organizations are recognizing the opportunity to improve the accuracy of all that data they have been collecting for years.

In actuality, about 40% of the activity and opportunity data living in your CRM is accurate. (In 2014, Ventana had it pegged to around 43%). So if you are managing your business, budgeting and making strategic decisions with this data, you’re going to be right less than half the time. When decisions are made from inaccurate data, quantity doesn’t matter. You’re better off going with your gut, or a coin flip, than “Big Data.” Make no mistake, CRM is invaluable to provide a central hub of sales and customer information. But if you are going to rely on CRM data to drive your business forward, accuracy matters. The validity of the data that resides in our CRM must be reliable.

Data entry with CRM was is and will always be a challenge. All too often, when a rep is tasked with logging his or her own activity, it isn’t much different than asking a 7-year-old to eat her broccoli. The child may do it, but she won’t enjoy it. For sales reps, if and when they take the time to enter data into CRM, the resulting information is subjective, brief, wrong or missing entirely. By the time it reaches the manager for inspection, it’s also outdated. Garbage in; Garbage out. To bridge the visibility gap between a rep’s activity and closed revenue, you need to look beyond simply soliciting the data from your reps and running a CRM report. If you automate the collection of

Data entry with CRM was is and will always be a challenge. All too often, when a rep is tasked with logging his or her own activity, it isn’t much different than asking a 7-year-old to eat her broccoli. The child may do it, but she won’t enjoy it. For sales reps, if and when they take the time to enter data into CRM, the resulting information is subjective, brief, wrong or missing entirely. By the time it reaches the manager for inspection, it’s also outdated. Garbage in; Garbage out. To bridge the visibility gap between a rep’s activity and closed revenue, you need to look beyond simply soliciting the data from your reps and running a CRM report. If you automate the collection of activity, and have that data processed in a simple, clean contextual interface, not only will the data be 100% accurate, but it will logged automatically and presented in an easy-to-consume format in real-time so it’s actionable by managers on demand.

The impact of this to your business can’t be overstated. Your reps will thank you for saving them time from logging activity, you will improve decision support from accurate and always-on data and your pipeline will grow through establishing a measurable standard and continuously improving upon that standard over time. So don’t be overwhelmed with the monstrosity of information. Focus on turning that Big Data haystack into an engine of accurate insights so the needle finds you.

You’re better off going with your gut, or a coin flip, than “Big Data.” Make no mistake, CRM is invaluable to provide a central hub of sales and customer information. But if you are going to rely on CRM data to drive your business forward, accuracy matters. The validity of the data that resides in our CRM must be reliable. Data entry with CRM was is and will always be a challenge. All too often, when a rep is tasked with logging his or her own activity, it isn’t much different than asking a 7-year-old to eat her broccoli. The child may do it, but she won’t enjoy it. For sales reps, if and when they take the time to enter data into CRM, the resulting information is subjective, brief, wrong or missing entirely. By the time it reaches the manager for inspection, it’s also outdated. Garbage in; Garbage out.

To bridge the visibility gap between a rep’s activity and closed revenue, you need to look beyond simply soliciting the data from your reps and running a CRM report. If you automate the collection of activity and have that data processed in a simple, clean contextual interface, not only will the data be 100% accurate, but it will be logged automatically and presented in an easy-to-consume format in real-time so it’s actionable by managers on demand. The impact of this to your business can’t be overstated. Your reps will thank you for saving them time from logging activity, you will improve decision support from accurate and always-on data and your pipeline will grow through establishing a measurable standard and continuously improving upon that standard over time. So don’t be overwhelmed with the monstrosity of information. Focus on turning that Big Data haystack into an engine of accurate insights so the needle finds you.

By the time it reaches the manager for inspection, it’s also outdated. Garbage in; Garbage out. To bridge the visibility gap between a rep’s activity and closed revenue, you need to look beyond simply soliciting the data from your reps and running a CRM report. If you automate the collection of activity and have that data processed in a simple, clean contextual interface, not only will the data be 100% accurate, but it will be logged automatically and presented in an easy-to-consume format in real-time so it’s actionable by managers on demand. The impact of this to your business can’t be overstated. Your reps will thank you for saving them time from logging activity, you will improve decision support from accurate and always-on data and your pipeline will grow through establishing a measurable standard and continuously improving upon that standard over time. So don’t be overwhelmed with the monstrosity of information. Focus on turning that Big Data haystack into an engine of accurate insights so the needle finds you.

The impact of this to your business can’t be overstated. Your reps will thank you for saving them time from logging activity, you will improve decision support from accurate and always-on data and your pipeline will grow through establishing a measurable standard and continuously improving upon that standard over time. So don’t be overwhelmed with the monstrosity of information. Focus on turning that Big Data haystack into an engine of accurate insights so the needle finds you.