Global Furniture Group

Now a days we are bombarded with information on data and analytics. Who hasn’t heard that AI is going to change all of our lives as well as the way an enterprise operates? But in spite of the hype, there are still some potential benefits to data and analytics to the core of an organization. Here are some in no particular order:

- Faster reports and analysis – in the past, it could take weeks or even months to get proper reporting from data. Now, with the use of business intelligence this can be reduced to mintues by use of statistics and visualization. Gone are the days of excel spreadsheets with no clear patterns or analysis.

- Informed business decisions - Enterprises are constantly moving from gut-based decisions to data enlightened decision making. The data is not the only thing upon which decisions are made, but it is definitely a strongly weighted part of any difficult decision.

- Improved data quality – We have changed from thinking of data as a way of keeping track of information to an asset of an enterprise. Due to this change in attitude, we understand the importance of correct data and thus data governance across the entire organization. Better data means lower costs as well as trusted sources.

- Goal setting and growth plans – With the use of data we can make predictions of a new type. From the days of “throwing a dart” to predict growth, we have come a long way. Companies can use advanced analytics to see what future growth will be and the factors that affect it. This affects all areas of the organization from procurement to sales, marketing and product development. Costs are brought down as all areas of the organization benefit.

How can organizations become more data-driven?

There are many ways that an organization can become data driven, but the one essential factor is buy in and support from the C-Suite. Without their “blessing” on all things data, any organization that is moving towards data decision making is bound to fail. The head of the organization must let it be known to all that data is going to be utilized and is an essential part of all aspects of the company. Executive leadership needs to empower the person or team that is going to make this happen, explain to employees the importance of being data driven and how the individual’s role has an impact. Another key to success is to ensure that a great cross functional team that understands their role is created. The team must have a vision of what needs to be done and communicate it to all departments. Finding stakeholders early on in the process that are excited about what is coming and working with them to show early small wins is vital when moving to a data driven organization. Once there is a small win, it can be scaled up across the enterprise. But this all starts with executive leadership that believes in being data driven.

  ​From the days of “throwing a dart” to predicting growth, we have come a long way. Companies can use advanced analytics to see what future growth will be and the factors that affect it  

How do you ensure data privacy and security?

I always make sure that I get our IT experts involved. There are so many ways to have a data breach that this is an ongoing battle. The first thing to do is to make clear who has access to what. Make sure that employees only have access to the data that they need. This takes a lot of coordination with the administrator, but it is well worth the effort. Make sure you can identify the most important data in your organization. Ensure you take all steps to protect that first and have a small number of employees able to access this information. The third part is to make sure you have a data security plan, so that everyone knows what needs to be done in case of a breach. It is important that employees are educated about password strength and how to change their passwords to make them more secure. Finally, it is imperative that there is always a backup of your data. If you do have a breach, you have your data security plan to help you bring back valuable information from the backup.

What new innovations in data and analytics have the most potential?

Even though it is not the glamorous part of data and analytics, data governance is going to become much more important. Many more organizations are jumping on the data bandwagon, but most are not ready for the huge step of standardizing data across the organization. Sure, there are great leaders to help data go from information to analytics to machine learning to AI, but without a proper standardization of the data, there is no trust in the results. Because of this growth, data governance is going to play a larger role in the future.

CEO’s are going to play a larger role in the shift to data transformation. They are finally seeing that they are going to need data to compete in the market. Hiring people that can reach across enterprises and bring value to the data will become a priority for executives. We have seen that in the past, data insight has been spread across the organization between IT, Marketing, Sales and HR. Each of them using the data for their niche. As data becomes a more important part of all business, the hiring for data experts that understand how it affects the company as a whole will take on a larger role.