In the cannabis industry, the current state of data management is chaotic, to say the least. It’s as though connecting to and managing data is a never ending, time consuming, labor intensive, and error-prone process. Not only are those aspects issues themselves, but the real problem with fragmented data systems is not knowing which data you can trust.
Due to this unreliable data, cannabis operators are missing potential business and financial opportunities. And because they can’t thoroughly analyze and understand the data, there is a significant compliance risk that constantly looms over the business. Missing out on key insights, to double counting metrics, human error, and the opportunity cost of the time spent trying to wrangle the data together to make it make sense, are just a few examples of the inefficiencies and risks associated with data fragmentation.
There’s one simple solution: data unification for a single source of truth.
Why is Data Unification Crucial for Cannabis Businesses?
You can't manage what you can't see, and you can't improve what you can't measure. First, you need access to business data so you can better manage financial and regulatory compliance needs, day-to-day operational efficiencies, and even business innovation and strategy initiatives.
Next, you need to be able to access that data in a quick and simple manner. This means it doesn’t take days or weeks for an analyst to build a report, understand the headers, generate pivot tables, and then perform an actual analysis.
Most importantly, you need to remove the massive front loaded effort described above and get access to your business data instantly, regardless of where it may live. A single, standardized and unified system to aggregate and access disparate data enables you to make strategic decisions and improvements based on what’s being measured. Simply put—on demand insight is crucial to succeeding in today’s fast-paced environment.
Why is a Single Source of Truth Necessary?
In any process where humans are involved, mistakes are inevitable. The key is being able to drill down the root cause of that mistake, especially when it comes to data management. It’s mission-critical to identify where a misstep occurred if something goes wrong. Having data in one unified location—a single source of truth—gives you the ability to trace back to which data was incorrect or missing after an error occurs. On the contrary, if your data is located in disparate silos, identifying the error becomes much more difficult.
A prime example of this occurs in branding. Often a business’s e-commerce team has its own system for labeling products and/or processes. Meanwhile, these may differ from the digital menus, or even the in store display. There needs to be a level of standardization across teams and systems to ensure clean data comes in and out at each stage of the supply chain. This standardization enables teams to focus on value-adding activities as opposed to cleaning and restructuring data time and time again.
Fragmented Data Affects More Than Leadership
Disconnected data is a headache for all departments throughout any organization. In cannabis, there’s no question inventory management and operations are negatively affected when data is fragmented.
Consider this: You’re not able to bring in the tool or system you need to do your job because it doesn’t connect to your other existing systems. With a single source of truth, and a unified API (Application Programming Interface), you can connect those tools seamlessly, ensuring that all the stakeholders within your organization can leverage whatever functionality and systems they need to be successful.
This also helps guarantee that all departments in your organization have clean and consistent data on the back end so that you can track every inflection point—whether it's your customer journey or your product journey, right from start to finish. All stakeholders will know exactly what's being produced, what's being sold, to whom, and for how much. This concise and accurate data is vital to making strategic business decisions.
The Benefits of Unifying Your Data Systems
Having unified data systems ensures it takes minimal effort to derive consolidated insight from sales, product, and customer data across multiple markets and disparate systems.
These insights unlock value in the form of new opportunities, increased competitiveness, higher customer loyalty, better product promotions, and more.
The Future of Data Unification in Cannabis
We’re already seeing traditional businesses stepping into the cannabis industry. I expect this trend to continue as our industry matures. As such, these businesses are going to need connectivity to their cannabis business partner’s data so that they can deliver the best experience to their customers. This will lead to greater adoption of unified data systems in cannabis, as more businesses show demonstrable improvements by implementing a single source of truth to manage their data.
