Data minimalism: How to practice this and the benefits of it

According to IDC, the amount of data that companies, governments, and individuals create in the next few years will be twice that of all the digital data generated thus far and since the start of the computing age – that’s 35 Zettabytes in 2018, growing to 175 by 2025.

But experts say that as much as 70% of that data will never be used  again, making it an unnecessary drain on resources for businesses. Between rising energy costs and a tough market environment, data storage has therefore become an increasingly expensive endeavour. 

In this piece, I’ll discuss why data minimalism is the answer, and how businesses can practice it in order to cut down on costs and streamline their data storage.  

Data minimalism 

For businesses to maximise their chances of success in the new digital economy, they must develop and embrace a digital presence, and cultivate digital assets. As they improve their business processes, and become more data-driven, they must find ways to create an environment that’s conducive to the use of digital technology. 

One way of doing this in a systematic and effective way is by creating and following a data strategy which has data minimalism at the heart of it. By ensuring you only store the data you need, business will be able to cut costs, while also being one step closer to meeting Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) targets. 

How to implement data minimalism 

So how can businesses refine and evolve their data strategy to ensure they are practicing data minimalism? Well, it starts with truly understanding the data footprint that they have. Asking questions such as: 

• How much resides on-premise, in the cloud or in other locations? 

• What data does an organisation need to collect and how is it being used? 

• What data is mission-critical, and what can be retained on more of an archive basis? 

Making informed decisions can only happen once leaders are across all these details. Once a business knows what their current data footprint looks like, they can then start to consider their options. 

Bringing on board a trusted advisor at this stage might be useful to help provide extra support here. For example, are there ways to become more efficient in where data is being saved? Can some storage locations can be consolidated to save costs? Could an organisation move more of their data into the public cloud, and work with one of the hyperscaler providers to improve the environmental impact storing and managing their data is having?

Benefits of data minimalism 

The sheer amount of data organisations are producing, collecting, and accessing today means that informal and ad hoc approaches to collecting and managing data is no longer enough. And that’s not even before you start to think of the environmental and sustainability impacts – something that is higher on the boardroom agenda in a world where stakeholders are much more focused on a business’ Environment, Social and Governance credentials. Data strategies are tailor-made and specifically designed to improve data management across a whole organisation, giving departments the guidance they need to work in alignment with each other, rather than against each other. 

Data minimalism may sound counter-intuitive, especially at a time where the value of data is sky-rocketing. However, implementing data minimalism can reduce your workload for your business, while ensuring data is clean, of a higher quality, and well governed, in order to reduce security and privacy risks, as well as unnecessary power usage that lead to increased CO2 emissions. 

Some sectors have additional mandates to follow when it comes to data. Financial services organisations for example must collect and retain a great deal of historical data as part of reporting requirements. They must put in place the right mix of storage technologies together to support these needs, in a way that is as cost-effective and sustainable as possible.

As businesses face ongoing economic uncertainty and turbulence, now is an ideal time to examine their digital capabilities and find ways to make data work harder and smarter for them. Building and implementing a robust data strategy, with data minimalism at the heart of it, will help them put their best foot forward.