Authority – Who is the author? What makes this person or organization an authoritative source? Ultimately, you need to use internal and external data in ways that meet your organization`s unique needs and goals. For this data to be useful, it must be well organized and easily accessible to the people who analyze it. Too much data can be overwhelming, especially if it`s outdated or inaccurate, which can make it difficult to use this otherwise valuable resource. When an employee is working on a risk management report, they must be able to access risk management data through a reliable information system. When working on claims management, they must be able to access claims management data through a reliable information system. Regardless of the type of data, storing it in a central location will make it easier for your employees to access and organize the information they need. Internal data can be used by any department within a company. From sales and human resources to finance and technology, internal data gives everyone a better insight into the inner workings of the business. Collecting data about your own organization is a much more complicated phenomenon than we suspect. Depending on your project or company report, the event policy can be quite extensive. Internal data can come from a variety of sources and services – sales reports, financial documents, HR information, or elsewhere.
Social media is an inexhaustible source of publicly available information for businesses. Users provide personal information, follow accounts and companies they resonate with, and interact with people around the world. The information provided by social media data includes: Internal data are facts and information that come directly from company systems and are specific to the company. In almost all cases, internal data cannot be accessed and reviewed by third parties without the express permission of the business unit. With this data, you can analyze which social media platforms do the most work to attract customers. You can change your prices to better reflect a price range that customers are willing to spend in today`s market. You can create a comprehensive set of profiles about the customers you serve and what they are looking for in the shopping experience. When looking at financial data, don`t just look at what makes money for the business.
They also look at where the company is losing money or where earnings growth has stagnated. Internal data provides insight into the company`s current practices and their effectiveness. Internal data collected from sources such as website KPIs and customer surveys is an invaluable tool for evaluating company policies, products and branding, as well as employee productivity. If you plan to use data to make informed decisions for your business, it`s important to know what types of data are available to you. While there are many types of data that can be analyzed, they all fall into one of two categories: internal and external. Sociological datasets may be similar, but the analysis will be more quantitative and divided into categories and variables for statistical analysis. Surveys are the most common tool for obtaining sociological data. Of course, you know a lot of them, for example, customer satisfaction surveys in which you express your opinion about a particular product. Usually, you will be asked to express the opinion on a Likert scale: something like “7 means you are extremely satisfied, 1 means you are extremely dissatisfied”. Depending on how developed your analysis is, working with statistical datasets can become quite complex.
There are also problems in quantifying human behavior and opinion. Obviously, one person`s 7 is likely to be different from another`s, even if they are conceptually similar enough. For our purposes here, we encourage you to focus on the simplicity of your enterprise data analysis. Professional sociologists trained in skills such as multivariate analysis can help when needed, but in general, this type of analysis is useless for day-to-day decision-making and information dissemination. As a student, you will gather information from a variety of sources for your research projects, including books, journal articles, journal articles, thematic databases, and websites. When examining each source, it is important to evaluate each source to determine the quality of the information provided. Common evaluation criteria include: purpose and audience, authority and credibility, accuracy and reliability, timeliness and objectivity or bias. Each of these criteria is explained in more detail below. Different types of external data are available to you. By using data from government, social media, and popular search engines, you can understand not only where your business is now, but also where it should be headed in the future.
Activity 2: Internal and External Sources of Information Your analysis of a particular data set, whether internal or external, is based on the data collected. Anthropology tends to think of the following as data types: Accuracy – Where do they get their information from? Does it have citations and references? Do they use reliable sources or explain how they collected their data? [Direct] or first-hand evidence about an event, object or person and may include historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, creative writings, audio and video recordings, speeches and art objects. Interviews, surveys, fieldwork and Internet communication via email, blogs, mailing lists and focus groups are also primary sources. Financial data can be analyzed regularly over different time stages. If you want to know which time is best to sell, you can benefit from daily reports. If you want to see the ebb and flow of your profit margins over time, it`s best to collect financial data to analyze over multiple quarters or years. In the digital age of marketing, data is your company`s most valuable asset. The insights gained through data collection and analysis can help you evaluate your company`s performance on all fronts. List the names of the internal and external sources of information that you use to identify issues relevant to your strategy.
Describe the information you can get from each source that feeds into a sustainability policy and implementation strategies. With HR data, you can see which policies are working (and which are not). Although company management and human resources staff work very hard to establish best practices and company policies, it is important to regularly re-evaluate these policies. HR data can show you whether these policies are having a positive impact on recruitment, retention, efficiency, and employee satisfaction. Returning to Martha`s case, we recall that her project explores the impact of the Human Fund on the homeless of downtown Chicago. Your basic reading would certainly involve looking at all the data available in your own organization. Depending on where they are and who they work for, this data may be readily available, or their use may require some sort of interdepartmental – or at least cross-team – authorization and access. Hopefully, she will be able to get her hands on internal information such as the number of participants in the Human Fund, find information on how long individuals have participated in the program, or get figures on the cost of the program to the company, etc. The Ithaca College Library defines primary sources as:[1] Adapted from Mandalios, J. (2013). RADAR: An approach to help students evaluate Internet sources. Journal of Information Science, 39(4), 470-478.
Companies rarely look at just one type of internal data. Each type of internal data offers a different insight into the inner workings of the business. To get a holistic understanding of your business, it`s best to collect all three types of data for analysis. Internal data is data about your organization derived from internal primary sources. An HR report on sales and hiring or accounting or finance finances are common examples. Note that an article in a business magazine about your company`s talent management would be a secondary source, even if it references internal data – originally a primary source. Internal data is generally not available outside the organization unless the organization is mandated to prepare such reports, for example publicly traded companies are required to file a large number of reports with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Depending on the size of your organization, having your own public repositories can be a great source of material for your corporate reports. While sales data focuses on the company`s interactions with customers, HR data focuses on the company`s interactions with its employees. This data can be used to make decisions about company culture, policies and employee training plans.
Human resources data can include information such as: While internal data allows you to see how your company interacts with its employees, the market, and the individual customer, external data allows you to see how your company fits into the global zeitgeist. It can help you learn more about your company`s competitive landscape and reputation. It can even provide information on various economic, social, or political trends that can impact your business. This information, often collected as part of efforts such as the census, provides companies with important information about the current market and future trends. Businesses can use search engine data to shape their marketing and engagement strategies.