Predictions for 2020: AI-Driven Analytics To Be The Center-Piece For CxOs To Drive Evidence-Based Decision-Making
For years, data-driven analytics have been mainly focused on making strategic business decisions. With analytics, the executive brass of all major corporations globally can gain in-depth insight into business dynamics, while anticipating market shifts that bring with them potential risks. The success of data-driven decision-making has now seen this paradigm percolate to other parts of the organizations as well. Business leaders are demanding evidence-backed decision-making as the norm in their organizations.
However, despite multiple attempts and millions of dollars spent by corporations, business leaders still feel that their organizations aren’t sufficiently data-driven. In a survey conducted by NewVantage Partners in 2019, it was found that even among the largest global enterprises:
- Around 72% of survey respondents claim that they are yet to forge a data culture
- 53% of the respondents admit that they do not treat data as a business asset
- 52% acknowledge that they are not taking any crucial steps toward competitive data and analytics solutions.
Perhaps the most disappointing result was that the number of firms that once self-identified as data-driven has fallen from 37.1% to 31% in 2019. Despite all the hype and investments around AI and analytics, sadly, the business value realization remains low.
In 2020, we fully expect that with augmented, AI-driven analytics, business leaders will be at the forefront of leading the agenda of data-driven decision-making once again. With the evolution of analytics platforms, it is now possible to provide every single business user access to insightful information that can power better decisions. In addition to empowering users with the right toolset, there are 3 further points that can help executives cultivate a culture of data-driven decision-making.
The Key Elements of Cultivating a Data-Driven Culture
Cultivating a data-centric approach to boost effectiveness and efficiency will require an unerring and assiduous focus on the following 4 elements.
1. Change the Mindset:
One of the biggest challenges in creating a data-driven culture is to change the collective mindset of your team to embrace data. Leaders must be both patient and disciplined as they try to coax their people in a new direction.
Focus on the following can help to shift the mindset-
- Start with leaders: It is up to the leaders to lead by example. If the top executives at any organization are unsupportive in setting the standard for data-driven decision-making, the organization as a whole is not going to go anywhere. Implementing any large change requires buy-in from the very top and hence it is critical that they support and champion this change.
- Showcase Results: Any change management exercise can be taxing and face severe bottlenecks. But we can ease the change by showcasing positive outcomes achieved through adopting the new process. By constantly reinforcing successes of data-driven decisions, and juxtaposing them against failures, it can be much easier to win the confidence of people in any new initiative.
2. Reinforce the Skillset:
To be successful with data, your team will need particular data-related skills and knowledge. Although you can always hire new people with incredible data skills, your existing people possess valuable domain expertise and knowledge. You need to make sure that your team is getting the necessary training on how to comprehend the data they’re consuming and using regularly. Besides data literacy, your team needs to be capable of communicating the insights and acting on them appropriately. Including these skills in your people development programs, is the second pillar to foster the data-driven mindset.
3. Enhance the Toolset:
With time, companies can accumulate a wide range of data tools and systems. Sadly, this scenario can usually hinder rather than assist the development and growth of a data-driven culture. Fostering a data-driven culture requires the following imperatives:
- Establishing a Common Data Language: No matter how many data tools your company has, you have to develop a common data language across the enterprise to ensure that there is a consistent understanding of the metrics.
- AI Augmentation: A huge part of the pushback against analytics today is the complexity of the tools themselves. Business users find it difficult the leverage the available toolset to make decisions, and end up relying on heuristics. With the growth in augmented analytics, in 2020, we will see the rise of analytics software, powered by AI, which will make it easier for business users to see, analyze and explore their data.
4. Consolidate the Dataset:
The quality and relevancy of the data will finally define whether or not it is genuinely embraced by your team. Many companies fail to define what their key priorities are and end up with an inconsistent mess of data which is siloed, making it hard to create a single, comprehensive picture of business performance. Consolidating the data into a single, easy to understand system will help in improving its accessibility and value.
Data is being used globally to drive performance. A comprehensive and refined understanding of data provides an insightful narrative that helps make better evidence-backed decisions. In 2020, executive leadership teams would do well to own the agenda of driving data-driven decision-making at their organizations.
