Why every business needs a data strategy?

“Our company decisions are no longer made through risky gut instincts. We run a successful data-driven business.”

Conversations like these often buzz around business tables, however, most organizations today still struggle to place a robust data system at the core of their working systems. As business owners, we might think of many reasons why we are unable to fully flesh out the benefits from data — including reservations about the size of our business, the capital involved and the accessibility of useful insights. 

Building a robust data strategy for your business ensures that you organize, manage and analyze your data in a way that it benefits your business to the fullest. By bringing people, processes and technology from across your organization together, it helps you chart out a goal-based map of how you can use your data to boost business growth.

What is a data strategy?

A data strategy is a comprehensive roadmap that describe the approach your business takes to acquire, store, organize, utilize, and distribute data throughout its lifecycle. It ensures that all the data resources of your business are organized in a way they can easily and efficiently be shared between all the different business units that might want to utilize your data.

This governance of data is a shift from the traditional silo-based system to a more comprehensive view of all the people, processes and technology that is involved in managing your data as not simply a by-product of work, but as the business asset that it is. 

Is a data strategy a genuine need for my business?

As a business owner, you might recognize the importance and benefits of a data strategy for your organization. But the question remains — “do I really need a data strategy for my company?”

Let’s begin by dissecting the size of your business and the specific needs it might have.

If you are a small business that is choosing to remain close-knit and tied to its current level of growth, chances are, you don’t require a data strategy at all.

For growth-bound businesses

However, if you are a small or mid-sized organization now, but are looking to grow your business, and expand your operations to achieve larger goals, a data strategy can propel your business forward through its sheer navigational ability.

Picture this—your operations expand, you have multiple business units being formed. To establish the running of your organization, your core need is to synchronize all these individual units to seamlessly interact with each other and produce work of value.

At that stage, when you have to tackle the data you have to integrate your operations, though, you will find that the data you possess has grown manifold as well. To tie all the massive individual silos of data together is a task that will entail much struggle and mundane effort.

This domino reaction of uncontrolled data growth can be regulated right at the beginning with a sound data strategy that will standardize your data storage and organization, impose formats and guidelines on various team, and overall, help you navigate the labyrinth of your data to show how you can apply the data you have fruitfully.

In addition, the strategic handling of your data right from the start can unlock many deep and intelligent insights about your business to help you draw a roadmap to your goals, boost your productivity and improve your overall performance.

For large businesses and enterprises

If you are a business or enterprise of much larger scale, implementing a data strategy is crucial when you want to achieve, or demonstrate factors such as system safety, data integrity or compliance with standards.

Building a data strategy for your business does not simply help in achieving goals and improving productivity and efficiency in the longer run—it also helps you organize, visualize and summarize data to help achieve core factors such as safety and compliance for your business.

When under the purview of internal or external audits, it is important for a business to confidently and consistently assert their adherence to safety standards, statutory regulations and more. 

If you are in the manufacturing line, for example, you must be able to attest to the safety and usability of your product by declaring proof of each safety screening it has undertaken. Oftentimes, this includes the furnishing of information to the range of minute records and details of individual units, all from a range of different sources.

Without the presence of a strong data strategy that has converted your data system into a standardized and centralized source of truth, it is impossible to draw correct and conclusive data from multiple disparate sources.

This may affect your business in various crucial ways when you are looking to obtain licenses, approvals, meet standards, grow with partnerships, take on projects and much more.

Regardless of the size of your business, a sound data strategy bringings in crucial safety, risk-management and customer insight factors, essentially helping your organization scale up to reach its goals powered by data.

Conclusion

A data strategy can bring security, compliance and data integrity to the core of your workflow, making it a crucial part of your overall business needs.

However, you might wonder how you can build a data strategy that is cost-effective, scalable, and places the least load over your stakeholders. If you need help developing a data strategy for your business, our experts can work closely with you to build one to help you achieve your goals methodically.