Is data actually adding value to your organization?

Last week, I had the opportunity to serve on a panel discussing Is data actually adding value to your organization. Preparing for a Post-Covid World. Here are three key insights:

1. Is data really an asset to an organization:

Data by itself is not an asset unless it is your product. It can be an asset, if insights from the data are consistently used to drive sales or solve business problems. This can be accomplished by seamlessly incorporating data-derived insights into decision-making processes and the culture of your company. e.g. consistent use of dashboards and metrics by management for decision-making.

2. What does it take to turn data into an asset:

• Culture: First step is to understand the baseline culture of an organization, specifically the mindset towards data across the depth and breadth of the organization, taking into consideration global cultural nuances for multi-national organizations. 

• CEO commitment: Digital transformations are multi-year tedious processes. The consistent and unwavering sponsorship of the CEO and the Board is essential to ensure its acceptance and adoption. 

• Quick and impactful wins: Quick-wins should demonstrate the tangible impact of data insights on the the top and bottomline. Here working with executive leadership to identify specific initiatives in their areas and co-championing their implementation can lead to a win-win-win (business-functional area-project). This also builds support for when things get challenging.

• Clear roles and responsibilities: Often times the ambiguity of the role of IT, finance and other functional areas in digital transformation projects can impede the project. One way to avoid this is to have a dedicated executive manager leading the project. This manager would report to the CEO but work with other executives to outline the responsibilities for the duration of the project and post-implementation. 

• Alignment of incentives: Having incentives for the executive team tied to the deliverables of the project can signal its importance and ensure the project is not blocked.

• Change management: The change management program should transparently address the impact on existing roles, and any skillset gaps and training required.

• Security and privacy: As data analytics becomes a mainstay, so will privacy regulation and security threats. Dedicated resources should be made available to research, implement and monitor these considerations.

3. What is the role of analytics in the post-Covid world.

The Covid crisis has highlighted if not accelerated the use of analytics in businesses. We will continue to see:

• Data-driven and automated process improvement 

• Pooling of datasets across industries or among companies serving the same customers. This “open-source” data can then be used by companies as per their needs

• Evolution of data security and privacy solutions

However, the speed of adoption by businesses will depend on how existing models handle short to mid-term predictions and availability of funds. i.e. for many CEOs the jury is still out.