There are so many technologies, processes and platforms that promise to maximise the commercial value of your business data, but in truth, it’s not that simple. Buying the latest technology won’t make you a data-driven business. A single Data Quality initiative won’t transform your data culture. A switch to the cloud won’t fix your challenges with data silos and accessibility. Advanced analytics won’t always put you ahead of your competitors.
If you want to feel the full commercial impact of your data, you need to examine your vision and strategy for data, aligned to your business strategy: how you manage data, the infrastructure that is best to support it, and the technologies that will enable you to bring your Data Vision to fruition.
Like your business, data is always changing. Being data-driven isn’t an end goal: it is an evolutionary process that enables you to keep exploring commercial opportunities with data.
Here is how to:
- Modernise your infrastructure and strategy
- Manage your data
- Monetise those efforts, to capture a better return on your data investments and keep your organisation evolving in line with technology market developments.
How to modernise your business data to get and stay ahead of the competition
Here are three tips to modernise your data:
- Set your course. Data modernisation isn’t about onboarding tools to follow an industry trend: it’s about modernising your approach to data to deliver the commercial outcomes you need. A good Data Strategy will have a clear direction that connects to your wider business goals.
- Get buy-in from the business. A Data Strategy needs the right buy-in to succeed. Engage the right stakeholders in your strategy to instigate real, organisational change.
- Make informed decisions. There’s a reason that partner-led implementation is encouraged by Gartner. Data Decisions can be complex, and it’s always advisable to work with a supplier-agnostic industry expert who can help you choose the practical solutions you need.
How to manage your business data so that it is always reliable and ready to drive commercial outcomes
The six essential elements of data management:
1. Data Quality
High-quality, consistent and accurate data is key to any data strategy’s success. An initial Data Quality assessment and profiling of your data will help you define the data you need and what it should look like, from your data descriptions to categorisation.
2. Data Governance
Data Governance acts as the foundation of your data strategy. It covers every aspect of your Data Strategy and your organisational relationship with data, ensuring that Data Quality is maintained and that data is clearly defined in your Business Glossary
3. Data Lineage
Understanding the full life cycle of your data as it moves from source to consumption is key to understanding its reliability and accuracy, especially when it forms part of a complex supply chain.
4. Technology
To choose the right technology to manage your data — be it MDM, PIM, CDP or something else entirely – you need to outline your current expectations, long term goals and assess the way your business interacts with data.
5. Agility
Data Management should never be inflexible: it should change and adapt depending on what your business needs. In today’s rapidly changing digital climate, every organisation needs cloud capabilities for an agile, reactive data strategy.
6. Accessibility
For your data to influence organisational change, it needs to be accessible to everyone who needs it. Platforms like Data Lakes, Data Warehouses or Data Lakehouses help to democratise data by making it available and consistent across the business.
Monetise your data: How to get a competitive advantage by turning your data into a commercial differentiator
‘Data monetisation’ refers to any initiative that delivers measurable economic benefit to your business. It could be a solution that enables you to identify and eradicate operational losses, or it could be a method of using data to unlock new revenue opportunities, such as targeted customer marketing or increasing CLV (Customer Lifetime Value).
Here are three examples:
Storytelling
Turning data into stories creates a narrative that everyone can understand, not just IT or technology teams. It can dramatically speed up the way that your business utilises data by presenting data in an accessible format: visualising that data through graphs, patterns, maps, timelines and more. The result is a more democratic approach to data – the benefits of data aren’t just limited to those who fully understand data from a technical perspective, but are open to all. Data storytelling’s commercial impact can be vast: it allows Data Driven actions to take place across the business, helping every department – or even individual – to be influenced by data.
Analytics and Insight
Using cloud services, like AWS or Microsoft Azure, you can explore new ways to exploit your data commercially and automate business actions, such as through Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing. Like visualisation, the success of analytics and insight depends on how you manage your data and the platforms you use to process and store it: cloud capability is a must, as is consistently high-quality data.
Analytics and insight are a huge possibility to increase efficiency and minimise human error across your organisation, but they aren’t without their risks: automations based on inaccurate data at best won’t deliver the results you need, but at worst can have disastrous business outcomes.
Enterprise Data Marketplaces, APIs, RPL, and more
New methods of Data Monetisation are emerging all the time. If you want to be ready to explore these lucrative opportunities with data, it’s important to first Modernise and Manage your data effectively. With good quality data, the right systems and processes, and a clear strategy that has buy-in from senior leadership, you’ll be in a stronger position to adopt Monetisation solutions and explore creative data ideas.
The Agile Solutions approach to Modernising, Managing, and Monetising your data
Through our approach to Modernising, Managing, and Monetising, Agile Solutions can help you change your perceptions of your business Data from hoarded information to a valued resource that works for you. It’s time to try the Agile Approach. Get in contact with our team today on 01908 010618.