When Business Intelligence (BI) and big data management are done right, companies can literally change their cultures, empowering employees and improving decision-making.

These are the sentiments of Chester Liu, director of platform product marketing at QlikTech, who sat down with ITWeb on the sidelines of ITWeb’s Business Intelligence Summit.

Liu unpacked what he termed a ‘data supply chain’, stressing what companies need to think about when collecting data. The chain features four steps, all of which Liu says are necessary in order for data to add value to an organisation.

The first step is data sourcing. “You need to think about what data you need to collect in order to make your business decisions,” he said, recommending decision-makers consider business goals when collecting data to ensure they don’t waste time and money collecting and storing unnecessary information.

The data enrichment step involves giving the raw data meaning. “This step is very important,” he said, adding that raw data lacks the information necessary for someone to gain value from it.

Equally as important, according to Liu, is the data quality step, which involves having the right tools to quickly detect data errors and address these problems.

According to Liu, the final step in the supply chain is data delivery. When delivering data to the desired audience, business must ensure the data is interactive enough for people to ask pertinent questions.