Johannesburg, 10 Feb 2022
Organisations have had to reposition themselves to cater more effectively for the requirements of a distributed workforce. This has seen the rapid adoption of cloud technologies to ensure data, applications and services are available regardless of geographic location. As we head into 2022, decision-makers must now adapt their data strategy roadmaps to factor in the lessons of the past two years.
Most business and technology leaders understand that data can drive operational efficiencies. The more information and analytics a business has access to, the greater the opportunity for innovation and creating new products.
But even now, not all organisations are equipped to generate these insights and harness them to deliver the integrated experience customers have come to demand. Even those organisations that are gathering data invariably neglect maintaining it and using it to discern insights that will guide growth into the new year and beyond.
A ‘new’ data approach
One of the core pillars of building a data strategy based on recent developments is to identify and understand the data that is being worked with. Consider what a data strategy does – it is designed to improve the way an organisation acquires, stores, manages, shares and uses data.
If there is no understanding of what the data is to begin with, then no organisation can hope to succeed in leveraging it for strategic growth. Of course, having the right tools to do the job are vital, but a shift is required from leadership to drive the new way of thinking from the top down.
Even then, the collected data needs to be interpreted correctly, and meaningful insights must be drawn. Helpful in this regard is to have the data be visualised for a broader cross-section of employees to understand, draw insights and guide future strategy.
Asset-driven
COVID-19 has highlighted how data must be regarded as an asset. If this is to happen, the business must put in place a data-driven culture. While leadership is critical, a data strategy in this new environment requires involvement from the entire organisation.
Unfortunately, the uncertain conditions mean that budget limitations will remain a significant challenge. Having data champions at all levels of the business becomes important as they can motivate for relevant investments that will ultimately help the business transform.
Along with this, they must put in place the means to measure and scale data analytics. Leadership wants to see demonstrable business returns of their investment and this will go a great way to proving it.
Becoming more data-driven
To become more data-driven, every decision must be tied back to the data. Data analysis is about finding patterns and then drawing insights and conclusions from those patterns. And once this becomes a habit, then the business will naturally evolve into the data-driven organisation it set out to be.
A critical lesson is that no matter the context, data strategies at a business requires it to adapt to changing circumstances or identify the need to get additional data to make the right decisions in this regard.
When it comes to data, there are many interconnected systems of which decision-makers must remain cognisant. This evolution is therefore a natural part of finding the best way to make data relevant to changes in the external (and internal) environments.
But there is no universally applicable way for businesses to manage this shift to become more data-driven. It all depends on the strategic priorities of the business and what it hopes to accomplish from its data. However, the process must start sooner rather than later if the challenges of the past two years are not to be repeated.
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