Understand Your Data : Female Entrepreneurs’ Thoughts Concerning Their Business Data
Nurmela, Sanni (2025)
2025
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202504247490
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202504247490
Tiivistelmä
Everyone is required to work with data. Alongside adherence to the law, data literacy is inevitably becoming a civic duty, forcing both individuals and institutions to shape practices for working fluently with an increasing amount of digital data.
Organizations are demanded to develop procedures for efficiently managing, analyzing, and presenting non-stop data in business operations. Intuitive decision-making is no longer supporting organizations competitiveness in this fast-paced technology era. Nonetheless, data itself is insignificant unless organizations are able to deliver value from it.
This study deals with female entrepreneurs that ran small businesses in various industries. The methodology follows semi-structured qualitative research which focuses on delving in-depth insights from female entrepreneurs and their thoughts concerning their business data. The overall purpose was to investigate the existing knowledge associated to business data, but also seek potential issues that can hinder entrepreneurs from leveraging data in their businesses. As women are more inclined to establish businesses that require digital infrastructure, digital security policies and data breaches are necessary to recognize.
Key findings indicate that women entrepreneurs who operate on social media platforms often obtain extensive knowledge of the social media data and statistics, but can feel less comfortable when reading and analyzing other data categories. In addition, small businesses tend to have plenty data in diverse platforms, which not only complicates the overall understanding, but hampers sufficient data management. Data protection practices and concerns regarding the proper storage of customer data were also common issues. The complexity of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) alongside other security regulations that are set to digital businesses were significant burden that obfuscated entrepreneurs’ perceptions whether they act in accordance with the law.
The thesis advocates that data literacy practices are increasingly necessary for small businesses’ competitiveness. Harnessing the full potential of data can reveal potential bottlenecks and inefficiencies in organization, offering simultaneously opportunities for entrepreneurs to strengthen their businesses success.
Organizations are demanded to develop procedures for efficiently managing, analyzing, and presenting non-stop data in business operations. Intuitive decision-making is no longer supporting organizations competitiveness in this fast-paced technology era. Nonetheless, data itself is insignificant unless organizations are able to deliver value from it.
This study deals with female entrepreneurs that ran small businesses in various industries. The methodology follows semi-structured qualitative research which focuses on delving in-depth insights from female entrepreneurs and their thoughts concerning their business data. The overall purpose was to investigate the existing knowledge associated to business data, but also seek potential issues that can hinder entrepreneurs from leveraging data in their businesses. As women are more inclined to establish businesses that require digital infrastructure, digital security policies and data breaches are necessary to recognize.
Key findings indicate that women entrepreneurs who operate on social media platforms often obtain extensive knowledge of the social media data and statistics, but can feel less comfortable when reading and analyzing other data categories. In addition, small businesses tend to have plenty data in diverse platforms, which not only complicates the overall understanding, but hampers sufficient data management. Data protection practices and concerns regarding the proper storage of customer data were also common issues. The complexity of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) alongside other security regulations that are set to digital businesses were significant burden that obfuscated entrepreneurs’ perceptions whether they act in accordance with the law.
The thesis advocates that data literacy practices are increasingly necessary for small businesses’ competitiveness. Harnessing the full potential of data can reveal potential bottlenecks and inefficiencies in organization, offering simultaneously opportunities for entrepreneurs to strengthen their businesses success.