How Web Scraping Helps You Leverage the Power of Enterprise Data

What Is Enterprise Data?

Enterprise data is information shared by users within an organization, either within a specific department or within offices in different regions. Companies typically split up enterprise data into categories that define whether the information comes from internal or external sources.

The enterprise data needs of even small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can grow quite complex. Because so many companies rely on data insights to drive their business decisions, it’s especially important that organizations have a steady, continuous flow of accurate information.

That’s where web scraping technology comes into play. By leveraging web scraping tools powered by enterprise proxies, companies can build a repository of enterprise data, giving them the ability to

• Build the foundation of an enterprise data management system
• Cut down on redundancies and disparities that can happen with manual copying
• Improve the quality of information collected from the internet
• Quickly scale and deploy solutions to handle various data needs

Companies can gain vital insights from the information brought in through automated enterprise data collection efforts. A combination of web scraping tools and Rayobyte’s proxies for enterprise use cases can jump-start your company’s efforts around more robust data collection.

What Is Enterprise Data Scraping?

Web scraping is a data collection technique that relies on computer software to locate and extract data from web pages or even entire websites. Without it, if you saw a website containing information relevant to a report that you’re pulling together from higher-ups, you’d have to manually copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet or other document.

It’s one thing if we’re talking about a small amount of data. But if you’re trying to collect a ton of information, that’s a lot more time you’re spending just sitting and copying data. However, if your company had automated web scraping tools set up, then you could extract large quantities of data a lot faster, freeing up time for you to spend on other work.

By using web scraping tools to gather valuable enterprise data, you can quickly gather information on competitors, including looking up pricing on products similar to those sold by your company and keeping up with a competitor’s marketing activity. We’ll dive into a few more use cases for web scraping later. But even now, you should be getting a sense of what a game-changer web scraping can become to your enterprise data collection efforts.

Why Is Web Scraping Important to Enterprise Data Collection?

Collecting data is often a challenge for enterprises of all sizes. Since many don’t have automatic data collection processes in place, they have no strategy to invest time and money into gathering information. In some instances, those in charge of making those decisions may be stuck on more traditional ways of collecting data through detailed interviews or sending out surveys.

Web scraping helps companies save money in the long run. Once you get a web scraping solution deployed, you can activate it as needed, which you can’t always do when you have employees manually gathering data. A good web scraping automation can collect data faster and more precisely than even the most conscious worker.

Let’s look at some other ways that web scraping has become essential to so many enterprises needing data.

1. More cost-effective

Relying on employees to collect data by hand can end up increasing your overall budget. The money you invest now in a web scraping tool can pay off in a big way through reduced labor costs and greater efficiency.

2. Increased speed

Let’s imagine a scenario where you find yourself desperately in need of enterprise data. To get that done, you’d likely have to initiate a project that tasked employees with gathering the information. Depending on the scope of the data required for the report, it could take weeks to complete.

With web scraping tools powered by an enterprise proxy, you could cut that down to days. The reduction in time can translate to the ability to make quicker business decisions that positively impact your company’s bottom line.

3. Improved accuracy

Human error often becomes a factor in the accuracy of the information collected and stored in your company data stores. This can turn into problems for other departments relying on that data for business functions like talking over product choices with clients or working on a data analytics project.

Why Is Data Important to an Enterprise?

Having the right enterprise data at your fingertips can help your company achieve essential goals such as:

• Optimizing various aspects of your operations
• Providing clients with a better experience
• Learning more about those who support your business so you can build on that loyalty

We talked before about how data has evolved to become one of the most valuable assets a company can have. The best thing about that is that there are no finite resources when it comes to information. In fact, the amount of data available to us continues to grow exponentially each day. It’s not humanly possible to keep up with that increase without employing automation tools like enterprise data scraping software.

Let’s look at how companies across different industries have leveraged the power of enterprise data.

Monitoring price compliance

Manufacturing companies can use web scraping technology to keep up with the information provided by retailers to ensure that they’re complying with established minimum advertised price (MAP) requirements.

Getting feedback from consumers

Customers in today’s internet age have no problems going online and expressing their opinion about a business. By using web scraping technology, you can collect reviews from different websites and analyze the data. That way, you can better understand what your consumers are feeling and hopefully generate fresh ideas on how you can improve their experience with your business.

Aggregating news articles

Many in the finance industry constantly keep up with the news to help them make decisions. Web scraping software allows companies to turn information from current news stories into insights upon which to base investment decisions.

Support real-time analytics

Real-time analytics involves reviewing data as soon as it comes in, with no delays. For example, web scraping technology helps companies extract information from around the internet to feed into algorithms used by data specialists to locate opportunities and potential risks for companies if they move in a particular direction.

Bring in quality leads

Companies often spend a lot of money on outbound efforts to generate viable leads for their salesforce, which can impact the size of your organization’s budget. By leveraging web scraping, you can locate more accurate information around potential customers who may be closer to the end of the sales funnel.

Monitor SEO efforts

Businesses use web scraping to collect data to store in data engines to analyze exactly what’s happening. By understanding more about the SEO elements that play a role in search engine rankings, you can make targeted improvements to your content that help to get it seen by more people.

Industry-specific applications of web scraping include:

• Academic institutions collecting information for a research project
• Pulling data to use in data journalism articles
• Job boards locating open positions from multiple sites
• Marketers keeping up with opinions around a company’s brand

What Issues Can You Run Into With Web Scraping?

While web scraping applications can significantly impact a company’s ability to leverage enterprise data, you can run into issues if you’re not running the right solution. Issues can also crop up if there are issues with your enterprise proxy

• Issues breaking down data — Sometimes, you end up collecting data formatted as HTML code, which can be problematic for lesser web scraping solutions to parse.
• Structure of website changes — If a company suddenly changes the HTML layout of their website, then that can disrupt the flow of your web scraping tools. For that reason, you need a flexible solution that allows you to quickly make modifications and deploy the updated solution.
• Policy protections around websites — If you’re sending multiple HTML requests, you can end up getting banned if you’re using a single proxy for your enterprise. Investing in multiple proxies can make it appear that each of your requests is coming from different IP addresses, which can keep them from getting banned.

Improve Your Enterprise Data Collection Strategies

Web scraping technology is a powerful tool that companies can use to boost their internet data collections efforts. Rayobyte provides residential and enterprise proxies capable of boosting the effectiveness of your automated web scraping processes. Learn more about our data center proxies, residential proxies, and other solutions that can benefit your organization by scheduling a consultation today.

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