The value of unstructured data for enterprises

Companies need to understand both sides of data

Organized data that seamlessly integrates with your relational databases helps you access and analyze essential information and gather valuable business intelligence. It gives you clear and concise quantitative information that you can understand at a glance.

Without structured data, you wouldn’t be able to perform accurate financial analysis, measure your KPIs, or even use simple services such as online booking.

On the other hand, unstructured data expands your data pool and offers you qualitative information. It’s necessary for predictive analytics, data mining, and even the creation of AI-driven chatbots.

Examples of unstructured data

– Text Files : Emails, survey results, customer reviews, chatbot interactions;
– Image and video files: Video testimonials, product images, employee presentations;
– Audio files: Voice mails, customer service calls, sales calls;
– Social media data: Comments, hashtags, mentions, group posts;
– Webpage data: Blogs, updates, reviews;
– Public data: Press releases, marketing materials, job ads;
– ESG data: Sustainability reports and predictions, case studies, social responsibility policies.

It’s the versatility of unstructured data that makes it so difficult to manage. You’ll need a powerful AI solution to go through the information, extract valuable insights, and receive a relevant and accurate analysis.

Almost 80% of enterprise data is unstructured

It’s estimated that by 2025, over 80% of all available data will be unstructured, making it clear just how essential it is to start gathering and analyzing it as soon as possible.

Unstructured data contains vital information regarding your brand’s performance, your competitors, the market trends, and the overall customer sentiment. Neglecting unstructured data will only deprive you of valuable insights that can help you make better data-driven business decisions.

Better insights

Although it’s unorganized and difficult to access, unstructured data offers much more detailed insights than structured data ever could.

Whereas structured data can tell you that your customers are buying a specific product or spending most of their time on a specific page on your site, for example, unstructured data can tell you why. You’ll gain deeper insights into their purchasing habits, ways of thinking, personal preferences, likes, wants, and needs.

You’ll receive comprehensive answers to any question you have – who are your customers, what goals are your competitors achieving, which businesses are your industry’s leaders, and why?

New innovation opportunities

Better insights can’t but lead to greater innovation opportunities. When you have the full picture of what your clients want, their pain points, what you’re doing well, and what you can improve on, you’ll find it easier to meet and exceed customer expectations.

Moreover, you’ll get the opportunity to identify any potential market gaps and fill them with unique products or services.

Improved customer experience

Your structured data will give you the facts about your demographics – the age of your target audiences, their location, even their income brackets. However, it’s the unstructured data that will tell you how you can improve the customer experience.

By gathering social media data, examining the comments and reviews you receive, looking into your customer support tickets, you’ll learn straight from the source about what your customers expect from you. Then, you can work on exceeding those expectations.

Conclusion