Did you know that Data Science is on a paradigm shift to changing the way organizations look at data? Companies that are best positioned to utilize data in the next decade will be the ones that are set to thrive, by collecting the right kind of data and investing on analytics.
Thirty-five years after Robert Waterman’s observation in In Search of Excellence that companies were “data rich and information poor,”very little has changed. From lack of talent to unreasonable expectations to culture, most companies struggle to build data into their business strategies to align their data efforts to the needs of the business.
Many successful business stories confirm that data can add enormous value only if we know where the data fits. While building a company-wide strategy, there are customers to satisfy, competitors to defend and skill gaps to address.
The organizations view of data assets is all over the place.Managers use it on a daily basis even though they don’t fully trust it. Although many find basic statistics confusing, people leave no coin un-turned when it comes to decision making capabilities and see little need for better analytics or AI. They recoil at the thought of some sort of central oversight to their data, yet are stunned when a data issue creates an unforeseen risk. While they understand that privacy and security is important, no one has ever made their accountabilities explicit. And they realize that becoming a data-driven organization involves adapting to their culture, which is difficult and always time-consuming. It is, therefore not a wonder that data is still far away from the business strategy mainstream.
There are numerous ways data can have influence on your business success, here are the three.
· Informed and Improved Decision Making
· Revamp and refine operations
· Create new streams of revenue
To begin with, most companies start by using data to improve decision making because it is an uphill task and involves intense resource allocation to simultaneously juggle between all three categories.
Informed and Improved Decision Making:
According to a study by Bain & Company that looked at more than 400 organizations, companies with advanced data analytics capabilities were five times as likely to make decisions faster than market peers. Making the right business decisions is the first and foremost way for all organizations in leveraging their data intelligence. Using data, businesses can identify and prioritize unanswered business questions and then determine what data you can analyse to find answers. It is certainly, one of the most prolific ways that companies gain insights from data to get a better understanding of their customers-data-driven insights rather than assumptions-about who they are,their preferences, behaviors, and more.
Revamp and Refine Operations:
Optimizing everyday business process with data can benefit organizations in the long-run. Virtually, a business process that generates data through customer ordering systems or machines can well be refined based on the insights, the data generates.
Many companies use data to gain operational efficiencies. For example, online and offline retailers today are using Artificial Intelligence(AI) to understand their customer tastes and preferences better. Using data science, fashion designers and stylists are able to identify trends and match the expectations of their end customers.
In the field of fashion, through data science, a user’s likes or dislikes, details of items exchanged, delivery timelines, optimal supply chain management, and variety of additional information can be collected and acted upon to ensure that the users have an incredibly seamless consumption experience.
Create new streams of revenue with data:
Is there a secondary market for the data you generate or gather?
Data is no longer coined as a mere process of generating insights. It has the potential to become a business asset. In fact, companies today are now being bought and sold based on data they own. “In 2015, IBM acquired The Weather Company because IBM wanted access to The Weather Company’s vast weather-related data resources. IBM can now sell that data to other companies who have an interest in understanding weather patterns.”
Regardless of where your company is placed in terms of data collection, be sure to have a data strategy in place. Companies such as Fitbit have now data merchants . They are beginning to capitalize on their data being valuable to other companies. Fitbit aggregates data about fitness habits and health stats to share—and sell—to strategic partners.
In addition to the aforementioned value ops for data utilization, here are six data scenarios companies can derive value from data.
· Improved Process
· Improved competitive position
· New and improved products, stemming from better customer and market data
· Informationalization,or building data into products and services.
· Improved human capabilities
· Improved Risk Management