Data breaches are the subject of headlines and cause anxiety in executives and IT departments, and undermine confidence of employees and customers. However, companies who share data with purpose are a rising trend in the business world that is driven by the capability to securely access and enhance information from external sources. This is driving the emergence of «frenemies» which are when companies collaborate in a specific market to achieve objectives such as identifying fraud patterns or getting deeper insights on customers.
Sharing and analyzing insights with peers can also give valuable perspectives that would be difficult or impossible to acquire on a personal basis. For instance, the information that employees gather from different departments can help to identify ways to connect with customers or improve marketing and sales strategies. This helps businesses identify opportunities and gain an edge.
Inconsistent or inaccurate data can hinder decision-making and create chaos with internal processes and operations, particularly in an industry that is highly transactional. Inaccurate information could reveal false customer information, such as the contact information or purchase history, which may hinder effective communication and lead to dissatisfaction and trust loss over time.
Data sharing can alleviate this problem by allowing the analytics team to focus on deeper analysis that can drive more impactful and efficient business outcomes. In addition, leveraging data from other departments can eliminate inconsistencies and discrepancies of reports, which can affect operational efficiency and cause confusion for the teams that utilize the data. Data sharing can also free up the analytics team to concentrate on other tasks that are crucial that include helping other teams understand what data is telling them and how it is related to their specific goals.