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Moving mountains... strategically

Striving to become a data-driven company is not enough - strategy is crucial to ensure the data is used optimally.

Mervyn Mooi
By Mervyn Mooi, Director of Knowledge Integration Dynamics (KID) and represents the ICT services arm of the Thesele Group.
Johannesburg, 07 Jul 2016

There is a great deal of focus on the 'data-driven company' now. But this focus misses the point - every company is data-driven to some degree. The question should be: is the company strategically data-driven?

Everyone - from the man in the street to the large enterprise - is driven by data. This data might emerge from weather reports, calendars, meeting schedules and commitments. A plethora of data drives decisions and processes all the time. But, this does not mean data is being used effectively. In fact, in this scenario, the data drives the people. Only when data is used strategically can the situation be turned around so the people drive the data, using it as a powerful tool to improve business.

While there is always room for improvement and innovation in the gathering, management and application of data, many companies are already strategically data-driven. These companies are relatively easy to identify, based on a number of traits they have in common:

* Innovation and market disruption. Innovation can happen as a once-off 'accident', but a sustainable business that consistently innovates and disrupts is certainly basing its success on the strategic use of data. The sustainably innovative enterprise harnesses quality internal and external data and analytics to inform business decisions, improve products and customer experience, and maintain its competitive edge.

* A culture of rationalisation. When a company is strategically data-driven, it has achieved a clear understanding of where its resources can be put to the best use, where bottlenecks and duplication occur, and how best to improve efficiencies. A company with a culture of rationalisation, a focus on deduplication and a tendency to automate and reduce manual interventions clearly has good insight into its internal data.

* A 'governance over all' approach to business and operations. Only a company with quality data delivering effective insights into all spheres of the business is in a position to apply effective rules and governance over all systems, operations and processes.

Data is the lifeblood of the company.

* Decisions are based on interrogating the right data with the right questions, using the right models. A strategically data-driven company does not tolerate poor quality data or interrogate this data in a haphazard fashion. The widespread use of quality data and analytics is evident in every aspect of the business, and is the basis of every decision within the company. The strategically data-driven company also routinely tests new theories, asks the 'what if' questions, and constantly monitors and evaluates outcomes to add to the quality of its data and analytics.

* 'More than fair' labour practices. Companies with a good grasp of their data know what impact employee skills development and job satisfaction have on business processes and revenue. Strategically data-driven companies tend to leverage their skills investments with better working conditions, incentives, salaries, training and perks.

* Strong leadership at all levels. Strong leadership is the base enabler for the evolution of all the other traits; and strong leaders are supported and measured by data. Data is the lifeblood of the company, supporting good leadership by allowing managers to improve efficiencies, ensure effective resource allocation, monitor and improve employee performance and measure their own performance as managers.

Any company not displaying these traits needs its leaders to be asking: "Are we taking an organised approach to data usage and information consumption in order to make our business more effective? Are we using our data to effectively look both inward and outward; and are we finding areas for improvement within our operations and scope for innovation and business growth in our market?"

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