Now that businesses are reopening, we’re all preparing for increased consumer activity. Let’s assume you have the right tools in place to work safely, you’re hiring back employees, your loans have been forgiven, and you’ve even managed to hang onto some cash.

What’s next? You may not need to operate with a skeleton crew, but you do need to manage data to prioritize efficiency. This is an ideal moment to take stock of how your business accesses and controls information. It’s an even better moment to make some changes. Here’s why: with more businesses reopening, spending habits will return to normal. (It will— it always does— just look at post-2008 for proof). You will likely experience a surge of business. But you’ll need to have the right data management processes in place to handle it.

A Winning Data Management Formula

There are several types of data in question, all equally important to your business. You’ll need access to information about:

• Customers
• New Employees
• Finances
• Company Docs
• Spreadsheets
• Orders/Invoices

How can you make sure every employee can properly manage the information they need while also achieving process efficiency?

A simple equation: data management = coherence + automation + accessibility.

Coherence

Data coherence refers to the way information flows between the systems you use to store and use information. It means making sure that you don’t have multiple versions of the same information. As businesses accumulate multiple software products, they tend to experience data getting locked inside certain systems. While integrations between applications can help transfer information between systems, they are often both custom and costly. 

Why is data coherence so important? Simply, if you end up with multiple versions of information, you’re prone to error. It doesn’t matter whether it’s customer, accounting, or employee data: you always want to end up with that “single version of the truth.” As your systems become more complex, that’s easier said than done. Files, tasks, projects, and invoices get changed all the time. Employees pass them back and forth, often via email, and edit or add details. If someone makes a mistake in the process, it can be difficult to track down the correct version.

True data coherence means that all information exists in a single copy with a clear edit log. The result is that nothing gets lots and everything has an audit trail. More importantly, it means your employees don’t waste time trying to understand what the most accurate version of any data is within your company.

Accessibility

You’ve had the experience of being unable to locate a report or an invoice. How long did it take you? How often does it happen? Probably more often than you’d like to admit.

Just like coherence with your company’s information, data accessibility is just as important in achieving efficiency. Problems with accessibility often stem from the same source as problems with coherence: working in multiple systems.

Separate systems for sales, accounting, HR, projects (the list goes on) produce proprietary data that becomes very difficult to share across the company. You end up with data silos as a result. And, as your information becomes more complex, there’s more to find— and more places to find it. Practically? That means hours spent for each employee digging through emails or asking permission for access to other software systems. Or, it means downloading endless spreadsheets and ending up with those troublesome data versions.

When operational efficiency is your goal, you need to make sure data is easily accessible. It should exist in a single location that everyone (who has the appropriate permission) has access to. 

Automation

Here’s a controversial idea: manual data entry will never fully disappear. Many aspects of business will become faster, and there will be a greater push toward AI and automation. But your customers will still want to interact with a person. And when hiring, you’ll still want to actually see and speak with your candidates, accountant, CPA, and every other human that’s essential to running your business.

There are plenty of interactions (and our need for them, even in the Zoom era) that will necessitate manual work done by real people. But efficiency isn’t about automating everything— it’s about automating unnecessary manual tasks. Those include:

• Duplicate tasks
• Data collection
• Approvals
• Status Updates

This is where your choice of software becomes really important. Beware of applications that promise “everything automation.” You don’t really want to automate your business away. Control is about knowing when manual work matters while keeping your teams working efficiently on what can be done with a single click.

The Greatest Opportunities

If your business is surviving and you can anticipate the surge of opportunity (and backlog!) to come, that’s great. But as you keep your eye on big-picture wins, know that some of your greatest opportunities are at your fingertips right now. It’s all about the ways you set up your business for future success.

Flip the perspective for a moment. If things get busier for your organization, and you don’t have the operational efficiency to handle it, you won’t just get frustrated, you’ll miss those opportunities. And you can bet that your competition, who has figured better data management, will thrive. That’s why there’s no better time than now to get started auditing your own efficiency.