Data consolidation is the process of collecting and integrating data from multiple storage locations to a single storage target. Consolidation of data strategies create or integrate data assets directly into a central storage location, simplifying accessibility and reducing system drive mappings. These strategies also reduce inefficiencies such as duplicate facts and costs associated with relying on multiple databases.
Every company is generating vast amounts of data. Human resource systems, product databases, customer relationship management (CRM) software, and hundreds of other business systems contain data about the company and its customers. This data is valuable on its own, even when locked in its own application silo, but it becomes even more valuable when combined through consolidation of data from other parts of the organisation.
What is Data Consolidation
Consolidation is the process of gathering data from different sources in your organisation, cleansing it, and consolidating it in one place. This ensures a 360-degree view of your business and makes it easier to transform data for reporting and analysis.
It also allows organisations to create a core set of data and explore insights from historical information for future decision-making in business operations. Consolidation of data eliminates redundancy and errors, ensures accuracy, and provides seamless data integration for operational processes and decision-making.
This process enables administrators to streamline data sources, identify patterns, and gain a comprehensive view of key business operations. Through consolidation, businesses transform scattered data into cohesive insights that inform financial and operational decisions. This ensures high-quality, accurate data and fosters efficient processes for accessing and investigating data.
Data Gathering
Data gathering is a key part of consolidation. The process collects data from multiple systems and ensures its accuracy before integration. As companies increasingly rely on data for business decisions, strategic planning, and analytics, the importance of data consolidation grows. Businesses must gather and prepare data from both internal systems and external sources, making it a foundational step in achieving successful consolidation.
Data Cleansing
Data cleansing is critical to the success of data consolidation. By correcting errors, eliminating redundancy, and ensuring accuracy, data cleansing prepares datasets for further use. Clean data leads to reliable insights, making it a vital component of any consolidation of data strategy. High-quality data enables better analysis, helping businesses maintain consistent data governance and avoid costly re-cleaning.
Organising Data
Data organisation is another essential aspect of data consolidation. By centralising and structuring data, businesses can streamline their processes and improve data accessibility. A solid consolidation strategy involves identifying, categorising, and storing data logically. This allows companies to maximise efficiency, reduce redundancy, and ensure data is always accessible when needed.
Growing companies often face challenges in storing data due to disparate systems and locations. Data consolidation provides a solution by enabling businesses to store all records in a single location. This not only increases productivity but also ensures that critical information is easily accessible across the enterprise.
Storing Data in a Single Location
More data must be stored as a result of expanding organisations, however, this problem frequently occurs because of the fact that different types of data require different forms of storage and locations. Because the data is easily available to that person, the Excel spreadsheet has typically become the industry standard for expanding businesses. The issue at hand is how much efficiency your company loses by preventing easy access to vital information throughout the whole enterprise.
Data is important to the success of the organisation. It must be kept in order and safe. Enterprises need to ensure that all data in the system is available when needed for analysis. If this information is not available, there is a high risk of data loss or corruption and the company may end up with incorrect data. That's why it's important to keep your business data in one place, using virtual private spaces and data pipelines.
Make sure the location where your data is stored is secure. When you choose a single, centralised location for your data in your data centre or the cloud, as a business owner, you can keep a closer eye on it and put in place strict security controls to protect access to it. You are more prone to data loss or hacking if your data is dispersed across several storage pools.
Data Consolidation Goals
Many companies seek to improve their competitiveness through data consolidation. This process ensures high-quality data is available for analytics and decision-making. By integrating disparate data sources into a single platform, data consolidation eliminates duplication, reduces costs, and enhances security. Companies benefit from a unified view of their data, enabling faster and more accurate analysis.
With the exponential growth of data generation, data consolidation has become indispensable. This process ensures businesses can process data efficiently, eliminate variances, and increase productivity. By consolidating all records in a single area, businesses achieve greater efficiency and faster access to valuable insights.
How can Fortuna help with Data Consolidation?
Fortuna provides the tools and expertise needed for effective data consolidation. Our software and hardware solutions enable businesses to identify all data types, integrate them into a central storage system, and run data analysis tools to uncover trends and insights. Data consolidation helps legal departments locate files quickly, aids in market analysis, and ensures businesses stay competitive in an increasingly data-driven world.
