Public Data: The Overlooked Key to Valuable Business Insights

In today’s data-driven world, businesses are increasingly relying on internal data to make decisions. Companies analyse employee turnover rates, profit margins, lead times, and other key performance indicators, drawing conclusions that help guide their strategies. While this approach is valuable, it often lacks context. How do you know if your metrics are cause for concern or simply par for the course in your industry? This is where public data, an often-overlooked source of intelligence, comes into play.
The Limits of Internal Data
Internal data can only tell you so much. Imagine you’re tracking your company’s employee turnover rate. You notice an increase over the last year and immediately question what’s going wrong. Are your benefits not competitive? Is your company culture driving people away? You could dive deep into your internal data to find clues, but one vital piece of the puzzle is missing—context. Without context, it’s impossible to know if a higher turnover rate is an issue unique to your company or a trend affecting the broader industry.
This is the common pitfall of relying exclusively on internal data. It provides accurate observations and can help identify patterns, but it’s difficult to understand whether these metrics should raise alarms or reflect the status quo. Public data could fill this gap.
Missed Opportunities with Public Data
Public data is often undervalued and overlooked, yet it holds the potential to do much more than just set the context for internal metrics. Consider the wealth of publicly available data related to industries, economies, and even population health trends that could add depth to your internal analyses. Failing to leverage public data means missing out on critical insights that could shape more informed decision-making.
For instance, Singapore's life expectancy data, publicly available through the Department of Statistics, provides an excellent example of how external data can shed light on broader societal trends. If we only look at internal health-related data for a company, we might miss the full picture. By integrating public data, we can paint a more comprehensive narrative.
Data on life expectancy in Singapore shows that life expectancy at birth for Singapore residents has been steadily increasing over the years, placing the country among the global leaders.
Digging deeper, we observe that women tend to live about five years longer than men, a trend that has persisted across decades. These insights go beyond what internal data alone could provide—they show broader societal trends that could inform health and wellness initiatives for companies.
And then, there’s the pandemic. In 2018, life expectancy for men was 81 years, but by 2021—after COVID-19 hit—it dropped to 80, while female life expectancy remained unchanged at 85. This data highlights the uneven impact of the pandemic, particularly on male life expectancy. Without public data, businesses might miss crucial insights about population trends that affect everything from employee well-being to long-term workforce planning.
The possibilities don’t stop there; we can take the concept a little further. Did you know that there is more than one way to measure Life Expectancy?
Life Expectancy refers to the average number of years a person is expected to live based on current mortality rates, without considering the quality of those years. It gives a snapshot of the general longevity in a population, but it doesn't account for whether those years are spent in good health or with illness or disability.
Health Adjusted Life Expectancy adjusts life expectancy by accounting for the number of years a person is expected to live in good health. It factors in both mortality and morbidity, so it reflects the quality of life. It gives a better picture of how many years of life are likely to be free from significant disease or disability.
Life Expectancy (LE) is typically higher than Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) because not all years of life are spent in full health. The difference between LE and HALE represents the average number of years a person might live with illness, disability, or reduced quality of life. As Singaporeans get to live longer lives, there are concerns about their means to support themselves for the rest of their lives after retirement. Retirement age policies have been adjusted from time to time to accommodate, but is keeping up with Life Expectancy?
Leveraging publicly available data on Health Adjusted Life Expectancy and Retirement Age to compare against Life Expectancy
The difference between Life Expectancy and Health Adjusted Life Expectancy show that women will live the last 9-10 years of their lives in disability or chronic illness; men will spend about 7-8 years of their lives in disability or chronic illness. The difference in life expectancy by gender appears to remain relatively consistent even as life expectancy grew over time.
Singapore’s retirement age was initially set at 55 years of age; and back in 1990, Singaporeans would need to find a way to support themselves for about 22 years for women and 18 years for men.
The retirement age has since undergone adjustments over time. It was increased to 60 years in 1993, 62 years in 1999, and 63 years in 2022; with plans to increase it to 65 years in 2030
But Life Expectancy had increased faster than the policy adjustments. And as at 2022, women and men have to support themselves for 22 years and 18 years on average respectively after retirement.
The Power of Public Data for Broader Insights
Public data serves as a vital complement to internal analytics, offering much-needed context and revealing trends that might otherwise go unnoticed. In the case of Singapore's life expectancy data, businesses can glean critical insights to inform strategies that go beyond their own internal metrics.
For example, knowing that life expectancy has been steadily increasing and that women consistently outlive men by around five years can impact workforce planning, employee wellness programs, and even insurance benefit structures. More specifically, the gender disparity in life expectancy may lead companies to tailor health and retirement benefits differently for male and female employees, ensuring that both groups receive the appropriate support as they age.
Beyond these general insights, public data also uncovers how significant events like the COVID-19 pandemic have impacted population health. The slight decrease in male life expectancy during the pandemic, while female life expectancy remained steady, might prompt businesses and/or governments to consider more targeted health interventions or resources for male employees, particularly in times of crisis.
The use of Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE) data also provides a clearer picture of the quality of life in later years. By factoring in the number of years people are likely to live in good health, businesses and governments can better anticipate the support their employees/population might need as they age. With HALE, companies can design initiatives that go beyond extending longevity and focus on promoting healthier, more productive lives for their employees.
Incorporating public data from sources like life expectancy and HALE opens up a world of possibilities for more strategic, data-driven decision-making. It provides critical context to internal metrics, while allowing businesses to discover patterns and trends that enhance their long-term planning.
Conclusion
Public data is an underutilized but powerful resource that can provide the broader context necessary for making informed, strategic decisions. When combined with internal analytics, it offers insights that go beyond raw numbers, allowing businesses to paint a more comprehensive picture of the environment in which they operate.
Whether it’s understanding population health trends, adjusting retirement policies in response to longer life expectancies, or identifying shifts in workforce needs due to events like the pandemic, public data enhances the depth and accuracy of internal metrics. Without it, companies and even governments risk making decisions based solely on isolated data points, missing the valuable insights that a broader context can provide.
Is your organization fully leveraging the power of public data? If not, it might be time to tap into this rich source of intelligence and integrate it into your decision-making processes. By doing so, you’ll ensure that your strategies are not only informed by internal data but also aligned with the larger trends shaping your industry and society. Contact FYT Consulting to find out how your organization can leverage public data as well.
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