Many organisations are on the race to become data-driven, collecting and measuring data to increase consumers, users, and clients experience. The McKinsey report found that data-driven organisation is 23 times more likely to acquire customers, six times as likely to retain those customers, and 19 times as likely to be profitable as a result. In short, being a data-driven company will differentiate your business from other competitors.
However, many business leaders still believe that achieving the potential of a data-driven organisation can be done simply by installing the right tools and applications. While maximising the use of tools is primary to this strategy, becoming data-driven is more about making data and analytics part of business strategy, its systems, processes and cultures. Here is how businesses can fully integrate their tools and data into becoming a data-driven company.
See also: 7 Ways to Create Data-Driven Culture
This first step is about deciding which data is relevant to the business. Thus, “what do our team need to know to reach the business goals?” is the question worth asking. Data is the key to successful business, specifically the mastery of data. It is time for leaders to clearly identify what information is necessary as input to future growth and improved performance.
To harmonise and integrate data, it needs structure. Once data is structured, it becomes much easier to manage. Structure is the key to being able to integrate data across businesses and to gain insight out of once disparate data sources.
Only good data that can derive good results, thus when the team has identified the Master Data, they should enrich its quality by matching it with quality reference data from a proven data partner. This way, there will be more accurate and up-to-date, with missing data filled in. Maximizing the insight of the data by expanding and enhancing the data with external data to identify potential new business is also essential.
After that, the business team should manage the Master Data on an ongoing basis through an explicit governance plan and stewardship programs. A data governance strategy is essential to establishing and maintaining data quality, most critically at the point of entry.
While managing the data should be done continuously, the business team should start creating value and better quality data by integrating the data across systems. Connectability with an external data provider ensures that the data flow is up-to-date and accurate.
Once the quality of Master Data is achieved, the team needs to analyse the data to make informed decisions on how to improve the process, make each transaction more efficient, understand which customers carry the most potential, etc.
When the data is automatically updated, there will be continuous access to complete future needs with reliable data as a basis for all business decisions. Automation can also save time for the team to work on tasks that matter such as generating more data to create a more accurate result.
Read also: How Can Data-Driven HR Maximise Productivity and Boost Talent Retention?
