INTHEBLACK September 2021 - Magazine - Page 42
F E AT U R E
// D ATA- D R I V E N C U LT U R E
“UNLESS THE CONNECTION BACK TO THE ‘WHY’ IS UNDERSTOOD
BY EVERYONE IN THE BUSINESS, BUSINESS LEADERS ARE GOING
TO HAVE A HARD TIME ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO ADOPT MORE
DATA-LED INSIGHTS INTO THEIR DECISION-MAKING HABITS.”
CHELSEA WISE, HYPER ANNA
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42 ITB September 2021
“Data literacy across the organisation helps everyone
in making informed decisions.”
Success measurement: “With data analytics, you
can develop transparent reports that provide a solid
360-degree view of the company and help stakeholders
better understand and measure the performance of the
company,” says Panjabi.
According to a 2018 IBM and Forrester report,
58 per cent of firms acknowledge that data and
analytics are very important to the business
competitiveness of their organisation.
“Data analytics offers tangible benefits across
all business functions – this knowledge gives a
competitive edge to organisations,” he adds.
Collaboration between business functions:
Panjabi believes a key outcome of building shared data
capabilities within organisations is the collapse of
silos and the resulting opportunities for collaboration.
“When different business functions and teams
coordinate among themselves for data sharing and
insights, it brings higher value to the organisation,
compared to just individual teams in marketing or
sales working in silos with their data.”
Data monetisation: Ong points out that the benefit
of data monetisation is often interpreted from a
narrow view of selling data externally for a profit.
“The real value from data monetisation can be from
three angles: use of data for a new stream of business,
enhancing the value of existing products or services,
and using data to improve internal processes and
operations,” he says.
CREATING A DATA-DRIVEN CULTURE
Given the challenges facing SMEs in grasping data
opportunities, building a data-led culture across
functions and geographies to define and deliver
value can be an uphill battle, although not impossible.
These tried and tested recommendations for
introducing and sustaining a love for data at every
level of a business are a good place to start.
Get buy-in from the top: “One of the key things
we did when we started our journey with data
analytics eight to nine years ago was to ensure
buy-in from the leadership,” says Panjabi.
“The tone, messaging and early commitment
from the top helped us with our organisation-wide
adoption.”
According to Harvard Business Review, while the
CEO should become a prominent champion of the
new culture, he or she needs an operational partner,
such as the chief data officer, who is well positioned to
become the data and insight change agent, leading the
company-wide transformation.
Wise says those in charge of data and analytics
have “to understand and lead by example, because
data analytics is not just data cleaning and collection,
it’s actually the consumption of data to make better
decisions every day at work”.