Even though you may process just a fraction of the data of that managed by a multi-national, the proportionate cost, in terms of manpower, technology and time can be several times higher.
Here are some of the unavoidable types of data processing that could be costing your business more than they should be.
Entering data from printed materials into electronic formats
This could involve purchase orders, receipts, invoice details, product information from printed catalogues, information provided by jobseekers on their CVs or paper reports generated by field engineers that you need to log for safety or compliance reasons. Unfortunately, someone has to do it and even if it’s not you as the business owner, you’ll certainly be paying for it.
Taking data from websites and inputting it into your own database
This can be really labour intensive. Whether it’s contact details or the business activity of potential clients you’re after or pricing and technical data on goods your business needs to purchase, there’ll be an almost never-ending supply of information available. It can change regularly, too. And it’ll be in a multitude of formats that won’t necessarily lend themselves to routine tasks such as copy and pasting or exporting.
Manipulating information that’s already stored in a database
Let’s say you have a big database with several categories of information but are looking specifically for trends in customer spend. Extracting just that data to the exclusion of all the rest can be a complex, time-consuming exercise. Ideally, you’ll need the input of a data analyst – and that’s not cheap.
Processing forms and customer surveys
Sites such as Wufoo and SurveyMonkey have made it easy these days to create customer questionnaires and conduct surveys. The hard part comes when you need to make the information you capture meaningful. Merging it into your existing database and data processing systems can be more time-consuming than designing the forms and gathering the data itself.
Migrating data to a new system
This can be a biggie. You’ve invested in a new IT system that, once up and running, is going to make life easier for everyone and reduce your overall admin costs. Before you get to that stage, though, there’s the small issue of getting all your business’s data across from the old system to the new – without putting the day-to-day operations at risk while you do it. Again, this is a cost that you’ll need to factor in to a major IT system upgrade.
How DaylightAT can help
If your business needs a protective umbrella over the cost of any of these challenges, take a look at how DaylightAT can simplify and automate data entry quickly accurately and compliantly.
