The world of business runs on data. As a business owner, you need to collect information on trends, sales, purchases, and customers to stay relevant in the marketplace.
However, this can be overwhelming, so business owners often hire multiple employees to manage it.
Traditionally, employees would collect raw data and integrate it into spreadsheets manually. However, since manual processes demand a lot of time and money, data automation has become an essential process.
Data automation involves using technological tools to extract, transform, and integrate data. Automation takes over monotonous tasks so that you can invest more of your time in core projects.
There are now several software and platforms, such as Captain Data, that let you conduct meaningful growth marketing campaigns by extracting and enriching relevant data from several sources on the web.
Now, growth ops teams in your company can come up with innovative strategies to boost business growth rather than doing mundane tasks.
If you are a business owner considering automation for your business but aren’t sure how it can help your business, continue reading to clear up all your doubts.
Automation allows you to execute tasks more quickly and efficiently, as it involves little or no human intervention. Automated tools automate the process of data handling, processing, and uploading.
When the tools control manual, repetitive tasks, data scientists within the organization can work towards building new features and improving the business structure.
They may also modify the business and enhance your website’s digital presence, improving your productivity and growth.
Data wrangling is also referred to as data munging. It is the process of cleaning, organizing, and structuring raw data in a way that is easier to access and analyze.
Data cleaning includes identifying empty rows and columns from your data set, deleting irrelevant data, and capitalizing first and last names.
Data cleaning involves repeatable steps, often used as standards for all sorts of data collected in a business. If you automate this task, it will be easier to match your new data with existing data in your system.
You can use scripts and schedules to format your data and conduct health checks from time to time to ensure that the new data is in the correct format.
Automation saves time and lets employees focus more on strategic tasks rather than spend their time cleaning spreadsheets.
Since data automation takes over the manual tasks once done by a bunch of employees, the costs associated with hiring those employees can be reduced by 16%.
The organization also requires fewer resources; they only need to hire a data engineer to leverage information from the automation tools. Once the process starts running, you can leave it unattended.
You can access the data you want through the software running the operation. For instance, if you make a financial forecast, you can instantly find the relevant data in the software, such as the cost of sales or general administration expenses, enabling you to work on the capital project efficiently and make informed decisions.
When data is collected manually, there is a higher chance of human error, as employees can make mistakes when recording customers’ data.
Examples of mistakes include typing data in the incorrect column, swapping letters or numbers, or inputting unnecessary information.
This can significantly lead to severe problems when gathering data on sales and purchases.
Inaccurate data on sales and purchases is needed to create a valid financial forecast. This keeps the business owner misinformed, so whatever decision they make for their business won’t give the desired result.
Automation can improve data integration and eliminate such errors, leading to business owners getting a clearer picture of the state of their business.
Automation gives you better control over the internal processes of your business. Ultimately, you can reduce operational costs and improve accuracy and efficiency through automation.