As having a data-driven business is becoming a must-have in the current climate, brands are wanting to leverage it to the maximum for all of their business decisions. The biggest challenge we face with data is that it is scattered all over the place, there is lots of it, and many do not have the data expertise to make sense of it all. With this issue in mind, businesses are considering a few options.
1) Hiring in-house data experts to analyse and manage data.
2) Hiring outside consultation and/or assistance in data management.
So which one should you pick as a D2C brand wanting to go to the next level?
Lets solve this question.
The first pain point is to look at how you are managing data. If you are running on a platform such as Shopify Plus, you already have access to many basic data points to help you get started. One of the issues that may come to the surface is when you have data in a variety of sources. You might have several Shopify stores, and several different apps and social media channels, such as Klaviyo, META and Yotpo. Calculate how much of your time and resources is going towards manual labour with different Excel sheets, where you try to keep track of all the data points from these sources. You might find yourself spending lots of unnecessary hours on this.
What if you could save time and have a sufficient platform helping you out?
Before even thinking about who is managing your data, what you want is to ensure you have the best possible system in place that combines all your current data into a single viewable dashboard, where automation is doing a lot of the work for you. This is something that Ellis, the business intelligence platform provides.
Any great system needs someone to manage it still of course - someone who knows how to work around it. Yes, a platform such as Ellis already provides you a lot as it is, but if you are lacking in data knowledge (and there is no shame in admitting that), following the right metrics can still be a challenge. So you are faced with a decision.
- Should we hire data experts and create an in-house team?
- Should we hire outside help?
You may fear that outsourcing means you lose some of the control of the data and may fear of even data theft. It's crucial to understand the distinction that even though you would be using a platform such as Ellis to store your data and outsource data analysing, the data is fully owned by you. Things such as data theft we take very seriously, addressing it with security policies.
Data brings a tremendous amount of transparency to how your business is doing, and it might not always be in a positive light. Performance-driven companies may fear what will be revealed if an "outsider" starts to analyse in-depth what the metrics are really telling us. We feel its crucial that you don't only want to look at performance metrics, but rather wanting to have a holistic view of the entirety of the business. Tremendous growth year-on-year is rare, and many businesses go through turbulence. This is where having the transparency can actually give you head-start to steer the wheel in a better direction, rather than avoiding uncomfortable truths.
What outsourcing to an agency would look like (atleast with us at Woolman)
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We make the data digestible for you. With so much data, we are able to tell you what data points you should be looking at. We can help to analyse and bring forth insights that can help you make more data-driven decisions for your business.
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We help to educate the whole organisation to become more knowledgeable on data. It's teamwork, we want you to understand as much as possible about your own data, and help you to identify the key metrics all the way from C-level to trainees of the company.
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We understand the market. We have wide business knowledge through working with different cases, helping hundreds of Shopify Plus customers. Our experts understand the key principles of D2C businesses.
Why not just hire in-house data experts?
- They need to build the data pipelines from scratch and that takes resources.
- It is difficult to find a data experts who also have a comprehensive understanding of D2C business. Without this understanding spotting the right KPIs becomes a significant challenge.
So what can we conclude from this?
With an outsourced expert you truly gain a head start! Accepting help is not shameful and even more experienced brands could use a helping hand from time to time. Putting our heads together and tackling data issues is a sure way to get things moving faster and without the unnecessary headache.