Today, we live in an age where an ocean of data is at easy disposal to everyone, especially the ones running an enterprise. Data has evolved to be one of the most crucial factors in driving growth and performance for organizations. Data-driven analysis, insights and strategies have become more crucial than ever. According to a Capgemini survey, ~65% of respondents view data as an essential enabler to organizational success. To give it to it, data has rightfully been a topline driver for firm operating competitive spaces.
Having said that data is quintessential to organizational success and also knowing that there is no dearth of data, the truth is also that many enterprises are still unable to leverage on the available data. This happens for more than one reasons – they are unable to identify the right data sources or the cost of manually sourcing the data and transforming it into insightful information is a process where the cost outweighs the benefit.
Data – internal or external is equally important to an organization.
So much data, yet so little leverage
Data is all about efficiency and effectiveness. Data in itself, standalone, makes no real sense. Data is all about relevance, timeliness and accuracy. There is no point in having access to data which is outdated or inaccurate. Also, though the data may be current and accurate, it needs to be relevant to the organization and must assist in developing insights and aiding decision-making processes.
2.5 quintillion bytes is the daily quantum of data production with almost over 90% of data being added in the last two years. It is only fair to expect close to 40 zettabytes of data to be floating in the data-space by the end of decade.
The catch here is that external data may be in multiple languages and in varied data structures. Consistency and relevance of data is quite a challenge in the external data environment. At the same time, data within your organization may be stored in silos and parsed locations. Your organization may or may not be ready for an integration with the external source, and even if it is, there’s a good chance of such a process being cost-inefficient.
The data extracting challenge
With multiple sources, systems and files, locating and collating data becomes quite a daunting task. Most traditional companies resort to either copy-paste manual collation of data or try to develop customized scripts and programmes to do the job, but quite often than not it just adds up to be an overhead process.
Here’s where web scraping services step in to rescue.
The solution to your data woes
While enterprises struggle in maintaining a real-time data updation process, that’s essentially the entire job of web scraping service.
With passage of time, many companies are realising the importance of web scraping and data extraction services. Web scraping bots are based on sophisticated axioms and algorithms. If your company is in the competitive space, you would be able to appreciate the value of dynamic data.
In a space where metrics like price and available inventory is a crucial part of the game, you would always want to be on top of the number game. Imagine having data at your disposal with a single click.
Yes, now we’re talking!
Imagine the power a dynamic business manager has to tweak and reposition its products and services if he/she could get all peer data at a click. This is possible and for all you may know, your peers are already doing this to stay ahead of you in the game.
How? Rest APIs are the answer.
Let’s say for instance, you are a retailer on amazon and you are selling a homogenous product. What will make shoppers buy from you and not from the hundred other retailers who have listed the same product?
The prices? Stock availability? Reviews? Maybe, all of them. So, what is going to keep you ahead of the rest? Better prices, better availability and better reviews.
How do you make these better? You can if you know where the rest are. That’s exactly what rest APIs will fetch for you in form of consumable data.
So, what exactly is a rest API or a real-time web scraping all about?
An API is a highly customized tool which lets you decide on what data do you need, when do you need it and in which format do you need it. It’s as simple as looking up a business for its details over an online directory.
Similar to a McDonald’s drive-thru, you input your order and in a few minutes, your output will be ready on the window – literally, the window.
We at BotScraper ensure that web scraping and data extraction is a breeze for you.