External factors have a great influence on businesses thus understanding these factors is very crucial when building a statistical forecast. To know whether an external factor has influence on our analysis or not we should consider the following aspects-

1.Consistency- This means how volatile is the data.

2.Accessibility-This is the ease with which we get data.

3.Frequency of getting data- For yearly decision making a quarterly data would do good but for frequent decision making daily data fits best.

4.Data Granularity-The granularity of data refers to the size in which data fields are sub- divided.

To read more- http://revenueanalytics.com/blog/uncovering-external-influences-in-your-analytics/

While running a business, one should consider not only internal data but external ones as well. Due to the inability to access information and integrate it, businesses are lagging behind. Though a huge amount of external data is available, it’s not always easy to find the desired information. Certain software aid the process of finding external data. Bringing both external and internal data together provides a unified view as well as helps in the process of decision-making and discovering insights. Data from all sources should be brought together and technologies that are able to perform this task and are able to put equal importance to all sources of data should only be accepted. Read more at:https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/does-your-car-have-more-awareness-than-your-business