Top 4 Reasons Why You Need a Data Portal

Gartner predicts that by 2023, companies that prioritize data sharing will outperform their competitors.[1] It's therefore no surprise that we're seeing a growing demand from organizations for a data portal for their customers. This interest stems from the fact that customers increasingly prefer valuable digital interactions. Customers want and expect more insight into their own processes and want the ability to arrange things independently. After all, this is also what we're used to from companies we're a customer of on a personal level. Just think of your bol.com account with a complete overview of your orders, wishlist, and invoices. Or your PostNL app with an overview of the letters and packages you've received. Customers now expect access to and insight into their own data at both the B2C and B2B level. With a data portal, organizations can meet this expectation.

What is a data portal?

But what is a data portal? A data portal comes in many forms, but in every case it's an online environment where sharing data and interacting based on that data are central for a specific target audience.

Such a data portal isn't just good for your customers. There are also interesting benefits for your own organization. In this blog we'll look at 4 important reasons why a data portal is good for your organization.

1. New revenue models
2. Data collection
3. Generate more sales
4. Chain integration

Reason #1: Developing new revenue models

Organizations today have access to huge amounts of data, not least because of all kinds of sensors and IoT developments. Thanks to all the technological developments in recent years in the field of data management and analytics, we can quickly and easily generate new insights from this data. With those insights, your customers can make better decisions. We're seeing more and more organizations start offering data-driven insights to customers as digital services. A data portal plays an important role here, as it serves as the platform for rolling out this kind of innovative service. Within a data portal, customers can pay to request personalized dashboards, reports, and benchmarks. As an organization, this supports new revenue models that prepare you for the future.

Reason #2: Data collection

A data portal can be used not only to offer data to customers, but also to collect data relevant to your organization. Think of gathering information through surveys or uploading files. The collected information can then be validated and processed fully automatically, or forwarded to other applications for further analysis (such as a data warehouse). By collecting data this way, manual steps are no longer needed. The data can then be used again to offer relevant services and insights to your customers, or to improve or optimize your own operational processes.

Reason #3: Generate more sales

A data portal can contribute to generating more sales in several ways. In a data portal, customers can find all the information relevant to them in a user-friendly way, at any time of day. Think of outstanding orders, contracts, and invoices. A data portal also gives customers the option to arrange things themselves, such as requesting a quote. All of this contributes to customer satisfaction, which will have a positive effect on sales. In addition, customers can be tempted with personalized offers to purchase new products or services. Here too, data plays an important role. The more information that is known about the customer, the better and more relevantly they can be helped, and the more sales that can be generated. Know your customer, and they'll stay a customer!

Reason #4: Chain integration

With a data portal, different parties in a chain can collaborate better and more efficiently. By bringing supply and demand together in a data portal and linking systems, processes can be streamlined and cost savings achieved. A great example of this is , the trade association for furniture makers in the Netherlands. Wood Loop is a digital platform for collecting and recycling wood waste, developed for furniture makers, wood suppliers, and waste processors. Furniture makers can order and report the return of packaging crates for separating wood waste in Wood Loop. Wood suppliers can view and claim orders and return reports in the portal, so the crates can be delivered and/or picked up together with regular deliveries of panel materials by the wood supplier. Waste processors get insight via the portal into the stock levels of full packaging crates at the wood suppliers and can in turn collect the full crates for further processing. All relevant data for the entire chain in one place, unlocked through a data portal!

Webinar on May 30 | Sharing data is the future, and here's how

Looking for a data portal that fits your business? We develop data portals using the low-code platforms Mendix and Microsoft. This allows us to build a custom data portal in a relatively short time that integrates seamlessly with your existing application landscape, and through which you can present or share all your relevant data with your customers in an intuitive way. On May 30, we'll tell you everything about data portals during a webinar. You'll hear about the trends and developments, what a data portal is and what you can do with it, the value of a data portal for your business, and see a few examples. Want to join? Sign up via the button below.

Sign up for the webinar

Written by Steven Samuels Brusse,
Senior Consultant