In today’s evolving and increasingly competitive business environment, data is one of the fundamental enablers for competitive advantage.
Across many industry sectors, the use of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is transforming businesses. For example, a recent Forbes survey revealed, “Over half of business owners [surveyed] use artificial intelligence for cybersecurity and fraud management … One in three businesses plan to use ChatGPT to write website content, while 44% plan to use ChatGPT to write content in other languages.”1 Most organizations are already adapting these technologies into their strategic agendas to transform their business processes.
As the adoption of emerging technologies grows, the volume of data creation will only increase. Therefore, building the capabilities and foundations to handle the new influxes of data, as well as enhancing the use of your business’s data, is no longer a strategic choice, but a necessity for survival in the new transformative age.
This article provides an overview of why your business needs to be data-driven, if it isn’t already. We also will further look at the competencies and challenges your business may need to address.
What Is a Data-Driven Business? Why Do I Need One?
A data-driven business seeks to continually scrutinize its data to generate insights and intelligence. These insights can help a business make more informed and personalized decisions on key business areas such as customers, operations, risk, and regulations.
Being data-driven can help you gain a deeper understanding of your market and your internal processes and be better equipped to achieve your business objectives. Businesses that fail to adapt and evolve risk falling behind the market and their competitors. Organizations need to grow their business processes with technology, not neglect these advancements altogether. By implementing a data-driven culture, your organization can be in a stronger position to innovate more, react faster, and be more agile to market changes. A data-driven culture can be integral to your business’s new normal for best practices and processes. Therefore, if you fail to make that transition, you risk conceding market share to competitors.
How to Become a Data-Driven Company
“To move forward … you need to know where you’ve been.” – Charles Williams2
In a modern digital twist on Charles Williams’ quote, becoming a data-driven business starts by considering the foundations of your underlying data and how it is currently being governed and handled. This analysis can help uncover the characteristics of your current data environment, such as its quality, architecture, and overall management. It can help identify and distinguish the granularity of your business’s different data classes, i.e., master data, transactional data, and process data, and how these could be used to generate valuable insights.
In addition, the assessment can help identify the competencies you need to build and the potential challenges you may have to overcome to become a data-driven organization. The analysis of your data in conjunction with your strategic goals and directions can help reveal what areas you can prioritize and develop to become a business that successfully enhances its data’s potential.
Challenges to Overcome
A few of the most common challenges our professionals see restricting businesses from being data-driven are:
- Understanding where to start
- How to navigate the journey
- Having access to sufficiently trained resources
In many cases, organizations have an inadequate data infrastructure or do not have the required in-house capabilities to handle their data. Although data analytical skills can be well sought after in employees, organizations can still struggle to build up the internal capabilities required to reap the rewards from their own data.
A possible way to resolve this challenge is to have a trusted advisor who also can act as a data collaborator. Of course, finding a suitable advisor, picking a satisfactory provider, and obtaining the right level of service also can present challenges. The incurred expenses of enlisting an advisor’s help for your needs alone can deter organizations from this approach. However, taking the time to find the resources that meet your needs can help give you a greater return on investment (ROI). Having support in place can help an organization harness the power of its data and resources to deliver organizational value and growth.
How Can We Help?
Forvis Mazars can help you become data-driven in your processes and your organization’s culture. Our technology consultants can help provide systems to streamline processes and offer valuable insights. Forvis Mazars can help scrutinize insights and turn them into meaningful recommendations for your organization to continue to integrate a “data-driven” attitude into its culture. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you outperform the competition, forecast market trends, and become truly data-driven.