Why Do You Need Unstructured Data?

Featured article by Bernadine Racoma, Content Manager of eTranslation Services

With so many industries, organizations, and enterprises relying on different types of data for their operations, it is no longer about where to find valuable data but what to do with all the available data.
In the data-driven environment, you can find two data types—structured and unstructured. Structured data is organized and easily accessible data consisting of values and numbers you can find in a formatted database that follows a consistent order. While structured data is a key source of information critical to enterprises, you can gain more business insights from unstructured data.
Unstructured data does not follow a pre-defined format. Instead, it comes in different forms and sizes, from photographs, videos, audio files, online texts, IoT devices, etc.

Managing unstructured data

The amount of unstructured data worldwide is about 80 percent, and it is growing at a rapid pace. You could be talking zettabytes of data right now. The sheer volume of complex unstructured data makes its management a challenge.
Luckily, you can now employ a data management platform available in the cloud to handle the tons of unstructured data an organization can accumulate. A data management platform gives you a single place to store unstructured data and allows you to connect to your various data sources, visualize your datasets, and search specific information.

Why unstructured data is essential to your business

Structured data is easy to capture using algorithms, giving you quick and attainable numerical insights. However, the process is different with unstructured data, but recently, the information you can glean from it has become more valuable to the growth of most enterprises.

1. It gives a comprehensive story

It is already known that 80 percent of stored data is unstructured, but it is likewise essential to know that it is growing at about 55 percent to 65 percent annually. Although not organized and accessible, unstructured data is essential in getting comprehensive answers to various business queries. It can help identify your customers, know their preferences and goals, and even what successes your nearest competitors enjoy. It can likewise provide insights into the attitudes of the top companies in your niche and more.

2. It helps you enhance customer experience

You can extract information like total sales and customer demographics from structured data. However, you can learn what your customers think of your company and your products, their overall opinion of your brand, and what they say about you on social media from unstructured data. You can learn how they react to your email and other marketing campaigns. Using the information, you can strategize on how to respond to the issues and make your customers have a better customer experience with your brand.

3. It helps you with business innovation

Unstructured data helps you see the gaps in your business. It allows you to understand what your customers want specifically and how your current technologies, services, or products fail to deliver what customers expect. With business knowledge, you can improve your products by adding new features that meet the needs of your existing and potential target markets.
Capturing unstructured data is easy, although its analysis is challenging. But you gain more from it through data technology and machine learning.
Image: https://unsplash.com/photos/zEo0SJhIxZ4

Bernadine Racoma is the Content Manager of eTranslation Services. Her long experience in an international development institution and extensive travels have provided her a wealth of knowledge and insights into cultural diversity. She writes to inform, engage, and share the idea of the Internet being a useful platform for communicating, knowledge sharing, educating, and entertaining. You can find Bernadine Racoma at Google Plus, on Facebook and Twitter.

Click here to view more content from IT Briefcase!