Setting the Path to Becoming a Data-driven Enterprise (Part 1)
Updated: Sep 13, 2023
There is no doubt that advances in data analytics are changing the way business is done globally. Analytics trends indicate that reliance on technologies for business intelligence and reporting will continue to grow in the coming years.
Business- and data analysts continue to collaborate, enhancing not only the quality of data but also its application for decision-making within the organisation.
In this series, we focus on trends that will help you refine your corporate performance strategies, whether you are evaluating your first steps or at the tipping point of innovation.
The digital economy is creating data as a prominent and important competitive differentiation in the market.
A recent study by Harvard Business Review indicates that almost half of businesses agree that analytics and insights have altered the way in which things are done in marketing, sales and finance. To adapt to this initiative in today's market means that businesses have to focus on three (3) distinct elements according to McKinsey and Co. They need disruptive business models, agile product innovation, and actionable customer insights. This study was made up of responses from 729 business leaders and reveals that organisations are not prepared for this data-driven future. While some organisations are moving in the right direction beyond manual, ad hoc, and non-standardised data analysis, most have a ways to go in their evolution into data-driven entities.
To put it in perspective, the world continues to produce data at a rate of 2.5 quintillion bytes per day (of which ninety per cent of all existing data has been generated in the last two years). The sheer amount of raw information currently accessible is at the risk of getting lost in the plethora of focus areas within the traditional business. The HBR study focuses on some key insight as relates to data and analytics within the organisation as well the propensity to share data within a variety of segmentations. Let us take a closer look at some of the insights...
Data and Analytics Maturity
How would you describe your organization’s digital data analytics maturity?
- Emerging: We're in the early stages of adopting digital data
- Developing: We've made significant strides, but there's room
- Proficient: Data analytics is well-integrated
Data Sharing Maturity
Percentage of respondents who say their organization is very effective at data and intelligence sharing at various levels of the enterprise.
As with any technology lifecycle, as certain problems are solved, new ones arrive as adoption and maturity become more commonplace.
Barriers to Transformation
The barriers to transformation are not limited to any specific industry with the top barrier experienced across the board, are organisational silos. This is closely followed by legacy processes, lack of in-house skills, resistance to change as well as limitations of the current organisational structure.
Ray Wang, the founder and principal analyst with Constellation Research is also quoted in the study as narrowing in on C-level executives buy-in as a determinant of success and rightly states that “Boards aren’t doing their jobs because they don’t understand the problem: they’re in a data war, and data is the weapon."
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Follow-the rest of this series and learn more about key trends and how to overcome these and other barriers to transformation. Is your organization experiencing any of these challenges or do you have successes to share from within your organization? Drop us a line below. Follow us on your favorite social network and feel free to pass this and other series articles on to other colleagues and friends that might benefit.