In our increasingly digital world, there is an often-overlooked asset that many (most) businesses possess. Their data. This could be data that they hold on customers or prospective clients, market research, even passwords to specific software that the business uses. Data is everywhere in a 21st-century business – and it has a value.
When something has a value like this then it’s important that you are managing it well and keeping it protected.
Here are our top tips for managing the data in your business.
Step 1 – Get compliant
It goes without saying now that you can just get away with not caring about the data you hold as a business. GDPR has been in place for a couple of years now – if you aren’t looking after your data its time to get compliant, fast.
Ensure that you are up to date with the rules and regulations, both generally and for your specific industry. It can be useful to keep an eye on the ICO website as they can offer some very helpful guidance.
Step 2 – Think about how you record data
It’s important to be thoughtful about how you record data as a company. This can include ensuring precision from all members of staff who handle data in your business to ensure that errors are minimised or are less likely to occur. Putting together a standardised data entry procedure might be helpful on this front.
It might be counterintuitive, but it may be worthwhile really scrutinising the amount of data that you collect. The conventional wisdom is that the more data you have, the better, but data does tend to have an expiration date – and the more data that you hold, the more you need to spend time and energy keeping it up to date.
Step 3 – Protect yourself
Putting protection in place is a good idea, especially when it means you don’t have to use it. As such, having a data recovery plan in place for your business is a very good idea. This doesn’t have to be complicated but should include details like:
It may be worthwhile putting a small core data management team in place to oversee both your recovery plan and how you approach data as a whole in your business. Be mindful that you won’t want this team to be too big, otherwise, the processes can become complicated and less secure. If you don’t have people that have the required skills internal to your business, it might be worth working with an external partner to keep you protected.
Despite the sheer volume of data that we deal with in our day to day lives, hopefully, we have shown that managing it in an effective way doesn’t have to be daunting.
To learn more about data management and how WebbyTech can support your business click here.
