The ‘2020 Enterprise Data Strategy Blueprint’
This is the year 2016. If you’ve been working with a significant company in any function of business and you are now aware that “data” and your view of what it’s about and its value to your company has taken many curves and veered toward a cliff, and you’re now required to invest to be able to survive in this digital age.
If you’re a CIO, COO, CFO, and even CEO, you are now aware that the outcome of your company is entirely in your hands. The potential of your team’s ability to be successful in the coming years in the age of digital technology that is coming through 2020 is dependent on your ability to recognize and manage opportunities to make your dreams come true.
The time is now. You must act now.
In this article, you’ll discover three easy steps that you and your company are able to connect to in order to navigate the turbulent digital age.
My assertion that these three steps can be applied to any company comes from my personal experience with clients across different industries all over the world and my keen interest in research on technological developments that affect enterprise data technology globally. In addition, being an attentive observer of the evolution of humanity from one era, that is, the industrial era, to the digital age. Additionally, I’m a professional working closely with teams of project managers and have previous experience as a consultant for IBM Labs in Dublin, Ireland, with respect to various data-related client applications.
If you’re determined to see your business succeed towards 2020, my prediction is that you’d want to rethink and possibly plan your plan with a solid strategy to get you to 2020.
It is likely that your company believes that the majority of your data strategy over the last five, ten, or even fifteen years has produced mixed outcomes. There were successes as well as failings. The two outcomes could have provided the momentum needed for you to reach the current situation.
The issue is, did it meet your expectations? Do you have the money to transfer it now?
2020 Enterprise Data Strategy blueprint – Steps
STEP 1 – Data serves the purpose
Here’s where you can take an honest look at your current situation. Whatever the good or bad aspects could be. I believe that you’ll have at least be more successful than you failed to achieve. The most effective thing to do is to mark your position according to the things you are doing – Nothing less and nothing more!
What would you do?
In the ideal scenario, you’ll conduct an exhaustive and thorough analysis of your current situation in terms of personnel as well as processes, technologies, and processes as well as the footprint of data within your division, business unit, or subdivision and eventually, roll it up to your company, corporate or central activities.
There is a choice to take the top-down approach or a bottom-up method.
Based on my own experience, I would base the recording of the benchmarking exercise on one or two of the most well-known and crucial business procedures. The results, however, must represent the whole. Take the 80-20 rule to apply here. It means that 80 percent of problems result from 20 percent of the causes.
This is the starting point for your strategy. Another benefit is that you are able to define essential metrics to measure here for your journey. Here are a few ideas:
1. Revenue per byte managed
2. Expenditure per byte managed
3. Per person, the number of bytes employed
STEP 2: Data as an ability
If you think of your business to be a mature company, you’ll be able to define a “capability model.” In the case of most companies, they will possess the following high-level capabilities:
* Customer Acquisition
The Customer Service Department or the Product Fulfillment
* Product or Production Management
* Operation
* Human Resources
* Technology
* Finance
* Sales
* Marketing
If, like many business executives and senior executives, think that data will become be an essential capability for your organization that you should consider including “Data” into your model of capability in the beginning.
What are the skills that have to do with data that you’ll require for the success of your business? Here are some to think about:
* Data Acquisition
* Data Cleaning
* Quality of the Data
* Data Transformation
* Data Presentation and Delivery
* Data Security
* Data Storage
• Data Preservation and Archiving
* Data Distribution
* Data supply internal
* Data supply External
* Data reporting – statutory
* Data reporting – non-statutory
* Data analytics
* Data visualization
Of course, this is only an example and is able to be modified to meet your particular and specific needs.
Some of the metrics that could aid are:
* Total revenue per data capabilities employed
* Total expenditure per data capabilities employed
* EBITDA per data capabilities employed
* PAT per data capabilities employed
* The number total of people employed as per the capability of data
In the experience of my colleagues, a small shift in perception is worth millions of dollars in project budgets that are channeled in the proper direction. Additionally, when you realize that data is useful and doesn’t add any additional or specific business value in terms of dollars, it is likely that you have realized the necessity of being data-centric. To be data-centric and be a people-centric organization. (add a hyperlink to the previous article)
Furthermore, you could have organized your scattered and dispersed data gathering, processing, transformation, and consumption activities into a “consolidated” logical bucket that you could leverage to maximize value creation in terms of dollars.
STEP 3 – Information as an asset
This is how it works. When you reach the point of making money from your data asset, it is clear that you’re talking about dollars! Data is here with it is now the CIO, CDO would have earned their “right” within the Boardroom.
This is the place where every bit of data is considered to be being a source of income for the company. If a byte, for whatever reason, does not earn the company, then you don’t need to control it! There is any reason for this, actually.
The data that you’ve been keeping for many years on tape or similar devices need to be used in the context of the analysis of customer behavior to boost revenue or aid in optimizing the cost in business processes. There’s no reason not to make this happen! Actually, there are technologies today available that will allow you to succeed with the use of archived data for analysis. This was previously not possible.
For the time of the digital age, you have your data earning profits for you. However, by this point, you’d have moved beyond discussions about master data management tools, data integration, strategies for data quality, and other unresolved and low-value discussions and conversations. Now, your focus is on how you can increase the value to your enterprise from your information asset.
