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Response Essay: Customer Data Means Nothing Without an Action Plan

According to Daniel Newman's article "Customer Data Means Nothing Without an

Action Plan", nowadays, high numbers of companies and businesses are too busy collecting
customer's data for pointless purpose. This pointless data collecting often wastes the company's
money. The writer suggested five tips regarding the effective and efficient data collection for
companies: considering the company's culture, considering the provider the company uses,
evaluating the company's commitment for customer's experience, cutting the data down to size,
and considering the outcome the company wants to make. Digital transformations are not
always about artificial intelligent and augmented reality, but according to the writer's view, the
focus of digital transformation should be put on collecting and utilizing data effectively and
efficiently to improve the customer's satisfaction. Overall, I personally agree with the writer
regarding his view on the activity of collecting customer's data for pointless purpose.
The activity of data collecting and storing should be done in an effective and efficient
way. A company should not collect literally all details and data of their customers, even though
it may seem the safest thing to do in data collecting and storing activities. The main reason is
because collecting and storing data do cost a company a lot amount of money. For example, a
research conducted by Goldsmiths and Max Blumberg from the University of London,
ineffective data collecting is an expensive drain on HR departments' resource (Blumberg,
2014). A company may have to rethink their data strategy since excess data collecting in this
era could lead to overwhelming problem and loss (Oncore IT, 2017). In business intelligence,
especially in data management, bigger is not necessarily better (Riedel, 2013).
In addition, excess data collecting could also overwhelm the company that could lead
to bad decision making. Young (2013) points out that analysts in a company with
overwhelming data collecting and storing activity could lose the ability to pick out what is
essential and fail to make good decisions. This problem has been foresighted more than thirty
years ago, that excess information results in poorer decision making (Toffler, 1970). And the
actual evidence of is this problem that has been foresighted by Alvin Toffler really happened
to the National Security Agency according to Whittaker (2016).
Dominantly, most companies and businesses across the world would say that more data
their company collect improves the accuracy of targeting (Matwyshyn, 2009). Companies
prefer over-collecting data rather than collecting what is needed and get rid of the rest (Bradlow
and Fader, 2009). However, this shared belief among companies and businesses is not correct
since it is much riskier for a company to collect and store too much data even though its
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objective is to have a better forecasting by collecting data as much as they can. According to
Matwyshyn (2009), over-collecting data could lead to much more serious risk, one of which is
the data breach activity. The only way to solve this data over-collection is companies and
businesses should re-think their data collecting strategies and consider to choose data
minimization concept (Bradlow and Fader, 2009). Data minimization concept makes it possible
for a company to avoid gathering too much data while collecting the detailed data from the
customers (Matthews, 2017). Overall, data as well as information collecting and storing
activity could be analogized in an analogy: Too much food makes you fat and immobile, so is
customer's data and information.
In conclusion, companies and businesses should start setting their purposes in
collecting the customer's data by applying data minimization concept in their companies and
businesses. This activity should be done by collecting what is needed and dumping the
remaining insignificant data or informations to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the
company itself. Too much data stored in the companies' inventory could overwhelm the
company itself with high costs of maintenance and could lead to company loss due to bad
decisions made. Even though minimizing data storing may seem risky and could lead to
inaccuracy, it is riskier to store overwhelming number of data. Therefore it is recommended
for companies or businesses to collect, store, and utilize the right amount of customers' data in
order to avoid the disadvantages of too much data.

REFERENCES

[1]. Blumberg (2014). Ineffective Data Collecting Costs HR Departments, says Max
Blumberg. Retrieved from: http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/article
details/ineffective-data-collecting-costs-hr-departments-says-max-blumberg
[2]. Oncore IT (2017). The Four Risks of Ineffective Data Management. Retrieved from :
http://www.oncoreit.com/the-four-risks-of-ineffective-data-management
[3]. Riedel (2013). The Four Risks of Ineffective Data Management. Retrieved from :
http://hir.harvard.edu/article/?a=10382
[4]. Whittaker (2016). NSA is so overwhelmed with data, it is o longer effective.
Retrieved from: http://www.zdnet.com/article/nsa-whistleblower-
overwhelmed-with-data-ineffective/
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[5]. Forbes (2009). What Customer Data Should You Keep and Toss. Retrieved from:
https://www.forbes.com/2009/03/19/heartland-payment-security-
entrepreneurs-sales-marketing-security.html
[6]. Matthews (2017). How to Avoid Gathering Too Much Data. Retrieved from:
https://insidebigdata.com/2017/09/29/avoid-gathering-much-data-yes-thing/