What is unstructured data? | VUX WORLD

Up to 80% of an organisation's data is 'unstructured'. But what exactly does that mean? And why does it matter?

Unstructured data is 'raw' data that hasn't undergone any kind of processing and isn't easily accessible or readable by computers.

That means that computers can't do anything with the data or make use of it in anyway, requiring human brains to understand.

For example, let's say you have folders full of word documents that contain business strategy decisions or meeting minutes and actions. Those documents will require a human to go through them and pick out information in order to take any action (like briefing a team on the strategy or informing individuals of actions they need to take.

Another example would be the live chat transcripts, emails and phone calls that a business receives on a daily basis. This unstructured data contains a whole raft of information about your customer needs, business products and services and staff competency. Again, these things require a human to go over them all to extract the value in order to pass it on to someone in the business who can do something about it.

There isn't enough time in the day for a business to 'mine' its unstructured data to pick out the relevant insights. You'd need just as many people as you have answering calls just to listen to the calls you receive alone.

That's why tools like humanfirst are so important for businesses in 2023. You can now finally analyse your unstructured data at scale. Something that would have taken an army years to accomplish can now be done in days.

As 2023 progresses, I'm sure we'll see more tools like this emerge.

Thanks to gregory whiteside for joining me and vux world at voice 22 and sharing your perspectives.