As companies collect more and more data, the ultimate
goal is to translate this data into insights that can help them optimize
business performance. For example, they may wonder which of their
customer segments is most profitable? How they can reduce their customer
acquisition costs? Which features of their flagship product are
underutilized or need to be enhanced? Which of their best employees are
potential flight risks? In most cases, answering one of these questions
will lead to . . . more questions.
When the questions you can ask the
data are unlimited but the time and resources to find the answers
aren’t, you need a strategy for how you query the data for meaningful
insights. We often like to say, “There’s no such thing as a stupid
question.” However, when it comes to analytics, some questions can be
poorly phrased, ill-conceived or misguided. They can lead to costly,
time-consuming expeditions into the data that don’t yield any actionable
insights.

The French philosopher Voltaire said, “Judge a man by
his questions rather than his answers.” This same standard can be
applied to organizations. Companies that struggle to get meaningful
insights from their data are often not asking the right questions. The
better the quality of your questions, the more valuable your insights
will be. Preparation is a key success factor to querying data
effectively and discovering meaningful insights.

Alexander Finn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderfinn/

The Data Standard
https://datastandard.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-data-standard/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTuolowXD05RY9DkIWqRT6Q