This article was updated October 27, 2022.
Using data analytics for your business can drive significant value and agility. Access to organized, readily available, and updated data can allow you to gain insight into emerging trends to make quick and informed decisions. Executives and managers can better strategize when they have data available.
With the right tools and engaged employees, you can make informed decisions to help manage trends and challenges—at whatever stage your business is with data analytics.
There are six stages along the data maturity curve an organization might go through on the way to becoming data driven:
Organizations at the beginning of the process and lacking insight into their data can start by building awareness of the business value of data analytics. They should be able to articulate the importance of data and what questions around their business they’re seeking to answer.
In stage two, key business functions are driven by a need to create independent solutions. Teams pull data from source systems and use spreadsheets to compile, clean, and understand the data, then prepare outputs.
This stage is often inefficient and prone to errors and siloing. Auditing your current structure could provide a road map to help your organization move out of the heavy lifting stage toward a successful data-driven model.
A data analytics audit could help your organization:
Organization awareness of the value of shared information increases and becomes a strategic priority in stage three.
Organizations are in the emergent stage when:
Toolsets are implemented to make information easy to access and the data analytics function grows. Approved data sets supply answers to business questions.
The data analytics function is aligned with business strategy and operations, providing insightful information. Stakeholders can use analytics to generate returns.
In this stage, decision makers and operational managers take ownership of the results and thoroughly engage with data to inform decisions.
This stage is the highest level of data integration and utilization. Businesses with optimized data analytics processes continuously look for areas of improvement and run more efficiently.
Businesses with an insight-driven culture:
Before the end of the period your organization has time to analyze current data and determine whether you’re going to meet goals. This leaves you time to see and react to emerging trends and engage in the conversation.
Executives and managers can have productive meetings using current data and formulate a strategy. Engaged executives can fuel an insight-driven culture.
Emerging trends can be difficult to identify if you don’t regularly analyze your data.
You want data in front of you as early as possible to recognize trends as they develop in order to be proactive rather than reactive after they impact operations.
Regularly analyzing your data can help your business:
An organization might expect an epiphany when analyzing data, but incorporating data analytics is a gradual process. As data is gathered and compiled, trends may emerge that had gone unnoticed. In an engaged organization, managers evaluate and adapt strategy continuously.
For help assessing your current data structure and implementing more robust data analytics platforms and processes, contact your Moss Adams professional.
You can also visit our Data Analytics Consulting Services page for additional resources.