BUILDING A

DATA-DRIVEN
ORGANIZATION
HOW TO LEVERAGE DATA TO GROW YOUR
ORGANIZATION LIKE NEVER BEFORE
Introduction
Data does not make decisions – people do. Having all the relevant data in the world
makes little impact if it is not properly leveraged by decision-makers. Conversely,
having dedicated, data-driven leaders in every key position of your organization will
hardly matter unless the right data is made available. This e-book outlines the
prerequisites of a true data-driven organization – and the critical steps towards
building one.

In today’s digital economy, data is an incredibly valuable resource. While many refer to data
as the new oil, we prefer to think of it like water.

Like data, water is everywhere. We find it in the greatest of oceans, lakes, small ponds – and
even inside us. But while it might be everywhere, it takes on several forms, and varies
greatly in purity. Clean, consumable water is scarce. This is also true for data.

They also both flow – some quickly, some slowly – finding the path of least resistance at
every turn. Every data manager knows that if you want to make sure data from the right
source ends up at the right place, you need to plan this flow carefully . And along the way,
you better have proper treatment facilities ensuring its quality – muddied waters always
lead to bad decisions.

So the question is rarely whether or not your organization has data. The question is: What
does your organization do with it? Do you let it wash away, or do you create the necessary
reservoirs, treatment facilities and distribution networks to harness its true power and –
give your organization access to something they can use? And finally, do decision-makers
trust its purity, quality and authenticity?

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Why a data-driven organization?
There are numerous advantages to being a truly data-driven organization. At its core lies
gaining a competitive edge through better decision-making and increased efficiency. A
data-driven organization can simultaneously increase revenue and reduce costs, all the
while bolstering the quality of products, reputation and organizational processes.

Increased revenue
The mechanisms through which this happens, are many. First of all, a data-driven
organization can trust that it always makes informed decisions upon a foundation that is
always reliable and up to date. As such, you remove whim and guesswork from the
equation, while simultaneously negating the garbage-in-garbage-out problem.

This means data can fully function as decision support for operational systems and
processes, which can range from sales, production and marketing, to maintenance, logistics,
service delivery and other industry specific needs. A data-driven approach also allows you
to more nimbly adjust to market changes, responses and feedback – streamlining your
production, and accelerating time to market.

Additionally, a data-driven organization paves the way for being more innovative, proactive
and agile, letting the data reveal new business opportunities for which to adapt. On top of
this, the organization frees up human capital that can be allocated towards efforts of
creating additional value.

Reduced costs
When operational, administrative and decision-making processes are powered by data,
you also empower your employees, equipping them with the tools to increase their
autonomy and strengthen their decision-making foundation. This allows for a leaner,
more efficient organization – and reduced dependency on external assistance.

Cost of doing business can also be reduced directly through more efficient, data-driven
processes – both administrative and operational – such as overtime or inventory
management.

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Increased quality
Quality in this context is highly connected to accuracy in decision making, sustainability and
reputation.

More data-driven, and hence more qualified decisions, run all the way through your
organization, ensuring:

1 increased trust

2 improved environment, health & safety (HSE) procedures

3 fewer deviations and reduced loss during production

4 increased product quality

5 increased customer satisfaction

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As for corporate reputation, having precise, actionable data available – and the know-how to
apply them – allows you to:

make better business decisions that in and of themselves

1 enhance reputation

more precisely communicate with target audiences, where

2 market data are available, strengthening
organization-stakeholder relationships

At the same time, there is a strong signaling effect in being at the bleeding-edge of what is
often referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. Being a truly data-driven organization, a
driver of innovation – and loud about it – increases brand awareness, augments market
sentiment and attracts tech-savvy, aspiring young talent.

DID YOU KNOW?

Over 90% of all the data in the world was created in the past 2
years; The total amount of data being captured and stored by
industry doubles every 1.2 years

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 Ready to take the next step?
BI Builders helps organizations become data-driven. We combine powerful data platform
automation with industry experience to improve decision making, reduce cost, and
accelerate productivity.

Get in touch to learn how

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What exactly constitutes a data-driven
organization?
A data-driven organization manages data in such a way that it creates a single version of the
truth. This means and requires that the data is both relevant, reliable and available.
Furthermore, this data is then used as a foundation for making business decisions.

The way we see it, the foundation of a truly data-driven organization, rests on these three
pillars.

Data-driven Organization

Business Strategy

Holistic and
Data Strategy Culture &
Relevant Data
and Data Competency
Available
Governance

Technology

Illustration 1: Data-driven organization

We will explain what each pillar means, why we consider them the building blocks of a
data-driven organization, and provide pointers on how to construct them in your own
organization.

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Business strategy
While technically not a pillar, you can consider this the support beam to which all other pillars
are attached. There is more to this than just architectural soundness.

Building a data-driven organization must be rooted in your organization’s business strategy.

This means both clear budgetary allocations and leadership involvement. It is crucial at this
stage to start with your business needs, not technology. The main challenge is almost never a
lack of tools or technology – it is knowing how to leverage what you have at hand to create
additional value or a competitive advantage.

In our experience, you need to start by asking the following key questions:

● What are the most pressing business needs to which more and better data could be the
answer?
● What is our actual level of ambition when it comes to gathering, storing and sharing
data?
● What KPIs are relevant going forward?

These are questions that need to be answered at a strategic level. Again: At this stage you
should be technology agnostic, and remain laser-focused on your actual business needs.

Furthermore, our experience is that corporations tend to narrowly target their budgetary
resources into procuring and implementing technology – neglecting needed allocation to the
other two pillars. It is not about technology alone. Technology is primarily a foundation – an
enabler. Modern tools and technology will not by themselves automatically result in a
data-driven organization if the users cannot or will not use them.

“Without data you’re just another person

with an opinion”

W. Edwards Deming, Data Scientist

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Holistic and relevant data available
Most organizations already have a wide variety of data available already. Some are internally
sourced, others external. They will be structured, unstructured, and somewhere in between.
Volume and velocity will vary.

So what do we mean by holistic – or relevant, for that matter? When we say holistic data, we
refer to data that concerns the whole organization – across all organizational silos and
levels. Remember the single version of the truth we talked about? This shared insight is
constructed first once you are able to paint a complete picture across silos like ERP, CRM
and operational data.

Holistic data spans the entire organizational value chain, from operational data such as
orders and deliveries, to controlling, financials and other administrative data.

As for relevance, we consider this a key data quality aspect. Essentially, it means the right
data, at the right time – for the right purpose. And consequently: how well the data can
support a specific need or decision.

Based on our experience, it is once again important to start by mapping out your data and
business needs and priorities. Keep in mind that most data use cases fall into three broad
categories, with the timeframe as a key separator: operational decisions (seconds, hours,
days), tactical decisions (days, weeks) and strategic decisions (months, quarters, years).

Strategic decisions typically address high-level goals related to growth, profitability, HR &
employees, regulatory compliance and sustainability. Tactical decisions are typically about
where to focus resource spending and how to detect new opportunities ahead of
competitors. Pure operational decisions could be everything from monitoring critical
processes for a production facility to speeding up the application processes for a
municipality.

Additionally, your available data might be more or less relevant to the extent that they can
nurture R&D initiatives. Examples of needs driving innovation measures could be related to
a company’s deliveries, like product development, price elasticity or supply and demand
matching – or customer relationship management.

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Data strategy and data governance
There has never been more buzz around transparency, data sharing and open ecosystems.
Simultaneously, concerns around privacy are growing, and we are dedicating ever more
resources to building sophisticated methods of access control. In a way, these forces are
working against each other. At the same time, it is apparent that data governance is more than
just a fad – becoming increasingly relevant for every part of the organization.

This means that whatever data you are collecting, structuring and acting upon, you need crystal
clear governance rules. These rules are necessary to meet regulatory compliance, and could for
example govern how we share and work with data across the organization.

Data strategy needs to be anchored at the very top of your organization. In our experience,
governance rules should be detailed as leadership develops its business strategy. The three
pillars plus technology, however, represent the implementation of this strategy relating to the
use of data as a strategic resource.

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Culture & competency
The graveyard of data and analytics projects is filled with great ideas. We have seen the proof
of concepts, the pilot projects and the headstrong initiatives. Many of them are superb – on
paper. The payoffs seem bright as day, the ROI is a no-brainer and the technology is sound. Even
the implementation can seem smooth as butter.

And yet, months later, the tools are collecting dust – before the project gets shelved altogether.
What on earth happened?

More often than not, the problem is that the organization simply was not culturally prepared.
Yes, becoming a data-driven organization is partly a data, strategy and technology project, but it
is just as much a change management process and cultural project. If you want user adoption,
you cannot forget the user.

In our experience, it is crucial to remember the importance of leading by example. Leaders

should, whenever possible, actively use data to substantiate claims, decisions, ideas and
business cases.

Becoming a data-driven organization also requires a certain level of digital maturity or

competency. However, you cannot simply give every user a crash course and expect lasting
change. This shows how culture and competence are closely linked. Knowledge expires, and
change in people’s behavior takes motivation and time. If you want to not only get ahead, but
stay ahead, you should aim for a curious, data-driven and data-seeking culture – driving
competence forward continuously.

DID YOU KNOW?

If you burned all of the data created in just one day onto DVDs,
you could stack them on top of each other and reach the moon –
twice.

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One way of fostering this is to schedule regular data-competency training sessions across the
entire organization. As the landscape is rapidly changing, having such a culture is a necessity if
you want to keep the competitive edge that being data-driven provides.

The very first step any aspiring data-driven organization should take is to map out their
organization’s digital maturity. Where are we right now in terms of culture and competency?
And subsequently, how does this map onto our level of ambition as decided in the business
strategy?

Whatever disparity is there, highlights the path for which educational or culture-building
measures to implement – whether it is training, inspirational workshops or motivational
storytelling.

Secondly, zooming in, there is a second gap between what users expect from IT – and what IT
expects from users. With leading tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook & Apple
setting the bar for ease of use, data availability and relevance, users might expect tools to be
quick, reusable, simple to understand – and providing a clear answer to their business
challenges.

IT, on the other hand, might expect users to not only be able to procure data and analyses
themselves – but use these without needing guidance.

In our experience, the most important answer to this is building a culture where mutual
learning and understanding is a core principle. Only then can you maintain sustainable
relationships between disciplines – and have the data-driven culture really thrive.

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Attempts to close this gap have also paved the way for self service BI, essentially tools that
make it easy for every user to access and draw key insights from data – without having to
consult the IT department.

But even with easy-to-use tools, the key questions remain – and they need to be answered:

● What use cases do we need these tools for?

● What types of data can give us the insights to make better decisions – or operate more
efficiently?
● What available tools can actually give us the relevant data?
● Who in our organization has the right skills and motivation to use this data?
● How can we set realistic expectations for both people and software?

Keep in mind that there might be gaps within all 3 pillars, and they might vary across
organizational departments and levels. These gaps are never filled by the click of a button, but
through gradual changes over time.

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To sum it all up
A truly data-driven organization manages to use data both as strategic, tactical and
operational decision support – and to create more efficient business processes.

This is made possible through clear data strategy and data governance, having
holistic and relevant data available, and by fostering the right culture & competency.
All of this needs to be rooted in the organization’s business strategy.

With all of this in hand, we wish you good luck on your path to becoming more
data-driven!

Ready to take the next step?

BI Builders helps organizations become data-driven. We combine powerful data platform
automation with industry experience to improve decision making, reduce cost, and
accelerate productivity.

Get in touch to learn how

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