What is Data Discovery?
Many companies do not take advantage of the data they have available. This is often caused by the simple fact, that the company does not know what data they have or where it is. This is where Data Discovery becomes essential. Data Discovery refers to the process of finding and examining data within an organisation to discover patterns that can lead to new uses for data. Thus, Data Discovery can play an important role in the strategic use of data, which can include everything from data protection to marketing to improving customer experience etc.
This blog is about how you as a company can utilise Data Discovery.
Examples of Data Discovery
To ease the understanding of what Data Discovery is, here are three examples.
- A retail company chooses to apply a Data Discovery tool to its data systems in order to analyse its large amounts of data. The company discovers that sales of certain products increase significantly in certain geographical areas at certain times of the year. In this case, Data Discovery helps the company align their inventory and marketing strategies more effectively.
- Another case is a webshop that discovers that there is a pattern in customer behavior on their website, where customers who see certain products have a higher probability of making a purchase. Through data, the webshop begins to optimise their online sales processes to maximise the conversion rate.
- A third media company discovers that they have an increase in negative feedback on social media about a particular product. By collecting and analysing data, the media company begins to reduce its response time, solve product problems faster and improve customer satisfaction.
In these three cases, companies have gained deep insight into their data via Data Discovery, enabling them to make more informed decisions based on data.
Want to know more about Data Discovery?
In our newsletter you get tips and tricks for dealing with privacy management from our founder Sebastian Allerelli.
When you sign up for our newsletter you get a license for one user to ShareSimple, which will give you a secure email in Outlook. This special offer is for new customers only, with a limit of one freebie per company.
What Data Discovery can do for you
What you use Data Discovery for in your business depends on your specific needs and requirements. Here is a list of what Data Discovery can do for you:
- Organise data
- Protect data
- Predict patterns and relationships
- Troubleshoot work processes
- Optimising marketing
- Measure the company’s KPIs
- Support strategic decisions
- Detect cyberattacks
In addition, Data Discovery can be used in connection with the handling of personal data and GDPR.
Data Discovery and GDPR
Data Discovery can play a critical role in complying with GDPR. By performing a thorough Data Discovery, companies can identify and locate personal data scattered across different data systems. This makes it possible to meet the requirements for data protection in accordance with the GDPR.
Data Discovery also helps build the foundation for responding to data requests from individuals. By having a clear overview of where data is located, companies can quickly and efficiently respond to requests for access, correction or deletion of personal data, thus ensuring compliance with the GDPR’s rights for individuals.
Start your GDPR cleanup where it is needed the most
Sensitive data can tends to accumulate in the employees' e-mails. With a GDPR Risk Scan from DataMapper, you get a report that shows any potential GDPR risks in the company's e-mails.
Why you need a Data Discovery tool
Data Discovery an be a time-consuming and complex task if you do it manually. However, a Data Discovery tool can streamline the process of finding data much faster than going through the data manually. Furthermore, Data Discovery software can typically provide a variety of capabilities, including data profiling, data visualisation, and data sampling, that help organisations understand and make better sense of their data.
Get started using Data Discovery
Data Discovery is a vital tool for organisations to keep track of their data. Data Discovery tools automate this process and help to quickly and easily find the data they need to make informed business decisions. When choosing a Data Discovery tool, it’s important to consider factors such as pricing, features, and ease of use, as well as compliance with data privacy regulations such as GDPR.
At Safe Online we have developed DataMapper, a Data Discovery software with AI-capabilities, that is specifically designed for small to medium-sized businesses.
Sebastian Allerelli
Founder & COO at Safe Online
Governance, Risk & Compliance Specialist
Follow me on LinkedIn to get tips on GDPR →
