Data is a fundamental part of digital transformation for businesses. It’s the fuel that powers every link in the value chain of a connected company, the lifeblood of innovation and the food that enables businesses to grow.
Keith Matthews, country manager: south and east Africa at Orange Business Services, explains: “Data is the engine of artificial intelligence, the gears of the industry of the future, an accelerator of team performance and a source of new services for consumers.”
No matter what the field, data and its collection, circulation and use have become central issues that captivate managers today, he says.
“Data is effectively a commodity which must be handled intelligently and creatively, in order to convert it into useful information for customers, employees and processes. The biggest challenge for businesses today is to identify and operate value-creating data sources in an agile way. ”
By 2020, the world will produce nearly 2,5-quintillion bytes of new data every single day. To keep up, Matthews says that businesses will have to move fast to learn how to capitalise on this immense wealth of resources and find the right levers to unlock decisive competitive advantage and boost performance in the world of tomorrow.
An important factor for businesses that will succeed in tomorrow’s world is the integration of data into their corporate culture. To make that happen, a data culture must extend beyond specialists and be shared by all of the company’s employees.
Data for everyone
One of the main uses of data is to monitor the company’s performance in real time and understand user behaviours. It also enables detailed control of activities, with the ability to tweak operations at any time. Data must be shared as widely as possible across the organisation to give employees the resources they need to make the best decisions.
Supporting change
The pillars of change management, senior management and human resources play a key role in driving this transformation. They must communicate the meaning of the data-driven strategy to employees, reassuring them that people are the heart of the organisation.
With respect to customers, data enriches the human relationship by creating more frequent and meaningful interactions. Internally, data helps to refine teams’ business vision by measuring the performance of actions taken with extreme precision.
Setting the company in motion
Businesses may have vast stores of data at their disposal, and it’s their ability to transform this data into useful information that will unlock its potential value. For this reason, a strong data strategy must be multidimensional and there are six essential stages in a data journey:
* Continuous collection;
* Transport;
* Secure storage;
* Processing;
* Analysis; and
* Sharing.
Whether it comes from connected objects, social media, CRM or other sources, data has an almost infinite value for businesses that know how to process it, as long as the proper organisation is in place to unleash all of its potential. That means businesses must rethink their organisation in order to transform all the disparate elements into useful information and truly unleash its value.
Data affects every area of the business, and the entire ecosystem must evolve to ensure that the company’s future is firmly data-driven.