In the ever-evolving digital world of business, organisations must rise to meet the challenges of modern data management. Post-pandemic, companies around the world are relying on data more than ever to make informed decisions and with the popularisation of hybrid and remote working, managing all this data logically and consistently is more complex than ever.

Data Management Explained

Data management is the process of collecting and organising business information to be used to inform decisions made by the organisation. The more data you have, the more important it is to ensure it is managed correctly, lest it lead to uninformed decision-making. 

A tailored approach to data management is essential for ensuring your organisation can understand and act appropriately upon the data you receive. Great quality data is only as good as the eyes that analyse it, so let’s examine the myriad of modern data management challenges, and how you can tackle them head-on. 

Challenges in Managing Data in Large or Hybrid Teams

The importance of getting the best from company information cannot be overstated. Analytics is the cornerstone of modern business decision-making, and these issues can impede how you can use it.

Disorganised data in high volumes

There are few things more aggravating than having too much data and not knowing where to put it. As analytical capabilities increase, the volume of data that comes flooding into organisations today can be overwhelming. 

As data stores become saturated with new data, key insights become harder to identify. Specific pieces of information become lost in the chaos, making it harder to build case studies or tell the right story. 

Decentralised data formatting

It is often the case that data is spread across multiple platforms, and lacks any central hub from which it can be pulled on demand. This makes locating specific documents or information increasingly difficult, especially if needed on short notice. 

An additional problem with decentralised data management is that it becomes stored in various different formats. Without a standardised format, analysing becomes much more difficult, as does using it conjunction with other data in reporting, or to tell a compelling story.

Siloed or restricted data

In today’s world of remote working, the silo mentality can cause departments and teams to work completely independently of each other. This can restrict the flow of data, and how it can be gathered and stored. This causes project teams to rely on information that is scattered across the organisation.

Often, departments and teams will use data in different ways, sometimes in ways that are difficult to reconcile. This can make data gathered by one department completely useless to another. Corralling and standardising siloed data is a major challenge that can be solved by using the right tools to collate and organise the data. 

Learn more about how working in silos can impact productivity here: The Silo Mentality Explained

Best Practices for Data Management

In order to make your data work harder for you, implementing some standard best practices around how you manage documents, information, and all other types of data can help to avoid some of these challenges.

Understand your data goals

Setting some goals will help streamline everything that comes after. Ask yourself what you want from your data, who needs to be able to access and action it, and what kind of data is surplus to your requirements.

This can help ensure you’re only collecting the data that is valuable to your organisation. Anything you don’t need can be left out, which prevents it from burying data that does matter.

Prioritise high-quality data over volume

To ensure the data-driven decisions you make are in your best interest, it has to be valuable. Implementing processes to improve your data’s quality is the best way to do this. Do this by changing the metrics you measure the data with, or by identifying anything inconsistent or missing.

Ensuring everyone understands what is required of your organisation’s data can help cut down on useless data, and improve your decision-making capabilities. 

Ensuring data security & appropriate access

Making sure your data is locked and secure is paramount to any organisation. Team members must be trained in data protection best practices to both comply with GDPR and ensure sensitive data cannot be leaked.

Access from within the organisation should be tailored to meet your needs so that the right people can access the right data without issue. Implementing different permission levels helps ensure internal security, and also streamlined decision making by highlighting the data relevant to specific teams. 

Organising and centralising your data

Organising your data in a way that gives the right access to the right people alongside centralising how it is presented and formatted is core to modern data management. Keeping your data securely stored in one place, formatted in the right way, and organised for ease of analysis, can solve all the challenges we described earlier. 

But how can you do this? What are the requirements of creating a system that ticks all these boxes? That’s where Verto comes in. 

Modern Data Management with Verto

Verto is a cloud-based platform that allows organisations to contain their data in one place, behind government-trusted security. Designed for cross-departmental use, Verto can centralise your files, assets and data in a single format and tailor access rights across the organisation.

Learn more about Verto’s data and document management here. 

The platform can be configured and used in various ways to suit the needs of every department. More than just a secure data hub, Verto offers various tools and solutions to help organisations get the most from their data. These include:

• Gantt charts to plan project timelines and milestones
• Customisable data dashboards for telling the right story
• Tools for managing risks, tracking benefits and acting upon your data
• Agile workflow management through the use of Kanban boards
• Network and dependency mapping tools to understand your project’s intricacies

Verto also operates directly from within Microsoft Teams, so now work can happen alongside the adjoining conversations and data is captured within the same, single platform. With Verto, everything is contained in one place.

For more information on how Verto could help you manage your data, get in touch with our team, or request a demonstration of the platform at a time that suits you.