Andrew Watson, CTO, MHR
Today, businesses have access to a wealth of data, with vast amounts of information created daily. While tools exist to help companies make sense of it and take advantage of the critical insights that data can bring to drive stronger business growth, many organisations are simply overwhelmed with the volume and velocity of data collected. With this, there is also a sense of uncertainty on how best to leverage this to create data driven insights.
Disjointed processes and dormant ‘shelfware’ are keeping a wealth of data stuck in silos – untapped and underutilised. As a result, nearly three fifths (57%) of UK organisations say they believe they are making business decisions based on inaccurate data. Without a clear strategy to guide them, organisations will be running blind, unable to access and get value from the relevant data to make stronger predictions and smarter decisions.
And the longer data is left untouched, and the more of it that is generated, the harder it will be to leverage it to its truest potential. Organisations must urgently recalibrate their relationship with data and learn how to integrate and analyse it to find trends and useful information. Leaders should see this as an opportunity to utilise the right tech solutions to harness the power of data as a vital source of competitive advantage and turn a digital landfill into a goldmine of data.
The data treadmill
Every day data is captured by every department in every business. No matter how big or small an organisation is, it is generating invaluable insight from customer patterns to trends on the efficiency of internal processes.
But with this level of data generated, many are finding themselves on a data treadmill, constantly working to ‘catch up’. These organisations are failing to make progress as they are not utilising or optimising the data tools at their disposal. In fact, very few companies are fully embracing the spectrum of tools and methodologies available. Most businesses are spending disproportionate amounts of time on manual data processes, resulting in a ‘reporting lag’. By focusing on simply managing the mechanics of data, such as moving and storing it, businesses are struggling to unite and access real-time data insights, instead creating disjointed silos that lack the enterprise-wide connectivity and visibility needed to identify where processes can be improved.
For other businesses, the challenge comes from not knowing what they want to achieve with the data, or that they have data at their disposal at all. Unused, unanalysed data is a missed opportunity for leaders to create real business value. This is not helped by organisations rushing into buying new systems during the pandemic and subsequently leaving them gathering dust, or only being used at a fraction of their full potential. In other cases, data scientists have been brought into an organisation, but do not know where to start, as the wider business lacks a smart data strategy underpinned by clear objectives. All too often, analytics are left as an afterthought.
Businesses need to become more data savvy lest they continue to fall even further behind. Not only do leaders need to ascertain what decisions their company needs to make, and where they can get the data to support these choices, but they also need to change their data strategy by putting in place the tools and people that can integrate the data to find previously unknown information.
Uniting business strategy and data strategy
However, this requires the organisation to have a business strategy that aligns with its data strategy, so that the data being captured can be used to measure improvements and ultimately drive business growth – after all, more than nine in ten (91%) organisations recently surveyed by MHR acknowledged data-driven decision making as an important factor in their development.
A strong data strategy is a cultural shift that requires top-down leadership. Leaders can ensure that the purpose and use of data within an organisation is directly linked to the core business goals, while guaranteeing that a new data-optimised culture is developed end-to-end throughout the company, bridging the gap between business strategy and implementation. In turn, aligning business and data strategies enables organisations to accurately measure the success of their current approach, providing them the next steps they need to take to continuously improve.
While data scientists can be viewed as a solution, they do not have the in-depth knowledge of how the business operates to ensure true strategic alignment. Alternatively, businesses can leverage the right technology, such as an integrated software solution, to ensure that their business and data strategies are fully intertwined throughout the organisation. With this in place, complex data processes can be streamlined and simplified through automation, empowering businesses to make informed strategic decisions from reliable and accurate data.
With technology in place, business and data strategies can be brought together and can generate eye-opening insights that keep companies on top of their data, ensuring that they are not running blind in the race towards data maturity.
