4 Reasons Why You Need to Move Away From Manual Data Integration

Anusha | June 10, 2022

Doing things the old-fashioned way may seem like a safe bet, but your competition already knows why manual data operations are bad for their business. It’s time you learn it too.

Data integration is the process of combining information from multiple sources into a unified view that can then be presented to users and used to analyze the results. The whole point of data integration is based on making business intelligence simpler, and accessible for systems and users to consume and process.

Even though data integration processes can be easily automated, and there are various solutions available in the market, manual data integration still plagues many organizations. Our recent research found out that 58% of marketers and analysts say routine marketing reports are still built on spreadsheets.

If to this day, you are still relying on manual data integration, we are here to provide you with 4 four key reasons why this is really bad for your company and why you need to move away from it ASAP.

1. It takes more time and costs more money

Time is a finite resource that you can never get back. Keeping this in mind, did you know that up to 80% of data integration time is spent on finding, preparing and integrating information?

And it’s not just a time-consuming process. Manual data ingestion can easily add to your costs, both financially and in terms of reduced time to value. After all, if something takes three times more time, it is clear that your company is at a loss if you don’t use the available technology to reduce this.

Furthermore, if your business relies on a small team or just one person who has the necessary knowledge for data integration and ingestion, not only are you limited in how much data you can consume but also in additional trouble every time one of these workers is absent. In other words, if you use manual data integration, you’re missing out big time.

2. It can lead to errors

Like with anything involving humans, the probability of an error occurring during manual data integration is much higher than with a fully automated process left to machines. Misspellings, duplications, and different naming conventions are common in manual data extraction, transformation, and loading. In fact, research shows some 41% of marketing data analysts do not fully trust the data they are working with.

These mistakes will eventually impair your analytics efforts, and underlying errors will make obtaining the information you require much more difficult. As a result, manual data integration can easily lead to wrong conclusions and costly errors, and you certainly want to avoid that.

3. It limits your ability to scale

If you have error-prone data sources that take ages to collect, consolidate, present, and analyze, it doesn’t return much value to you, right? Manual data integration is only as fast as the person doing it. This makes it difficult to scale or execute massive data operations on a regular basis. 

Relying too heavily on human capabilities, rather than standardized data-processing techniques will eventually overflow your business processes, bringing them to a standstill. In short, without an automated system, your firm simply won’t be able to improve the maturity of its marketing analytics and your ability to keep up with the competition will be severely affected.

4. Boring work kills productivity

Last, but not least, manual data integration involves a lot of boring, mundane work done by your colleagues. This entails many workplace failures because even a small mistake in one department can be the cause of a whole range of new problems throughout the entire company.

And when you do tedious work all the time, it can ruin both your motivation and your productivity. Therefore, employees, as one of the most important resources of every company, will not be satisfied with their work and, over time, the value they bring will drastically decrease. Instead, if you relieve them of these tasks, they will surely be happier and more productive members of the collective. 

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Want to move away from manual data integration?

For more details on how your company and you can save time, money, and energy with fully automated data integration, contact our advisors today!

Source : Adverity

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