CIO GUIDE: REWIRING YOUR CULTURE TO BE DATA-DRIVEN
What's standing in the way of a data-driven culture?
C-suite executives recognize the enormous opportunity
ignited by data-driven business. In IDG's 2021 Data &
Analytics survey, 78% of IT decision-makers said the
collection and analysis of data has the potential to fun-
damentally change the way their company does business
over the next three years.
However, while executives understand the value of
embracing data-driven business practices, they face a
variety of challenges to make good on the mandate.
According to NewVantage Partners' Big Data and AI
Executive Survey 2021:
While virtually all organizations (99%) are actively
investing Big Data and AI, less than half are driving
innovation with data (49%) or competing on
analytics (41%)
Only 39% are managing data as a business asset
Less than one-third (30%) have a well-articulated
data strategy
Less than one-quarter have forged a data culture
(24%) or created a data-driven organization (24%).
Among the biggest obstacles to creating data-driven
business practices and culture are:
Poorly articulated direction and a defined place
to start
Lack of focused leadership and executive engage-
ment to help change organizational structure, estab-
lish new roles, and embrace new ways of working
Outdated data governance and data manage-
ment policies
A lack of data proficiency across the organization,
which impedes the true "democratization" of data
Persistence of data silos, supported by cultural
silos that discourage shared access to business-
critical information.
"Cultural silos feed the data silos, and they are difficult to
overcome," Vachhrajani says. "They incentivize individual
functions to guard their data to control the narrative."
Yet another roadblock: Too many companies still operate
from a "data-forward" playbook that concentrates on
amassing huge volumes of data, only to regroup after the
fact to figure out what to do with it. In comparison, com-
panies that successfully move the needle on data-driven
business are embracing a "customer-backwards" model:
identifying a specific business opportunity or challenge
and then mapping data accordingly to problem-solve or
achieve a specific outcome.
Many large enterprises "are drowning in a sea of data and
they sometimes aren't properly focused on what's crucial
for business success," says Michael Gabriel, a partner with
Fortium Partners. "And that can lead to underachieve-
ment from the use of data analytics, as they can't see the
forest for the trees—or even find the trees."
Slow adoption of
data-driven
business practices
of organizations are
driving innovation
with data
of organizations
are competing on
analytics
are managing data as
a business asset
Source: Big Data and AI Executive Survey 2021, NewVantage Partners
Source: Big Data and AI Executive Survey 2021, NewVantage Partners
of organizations
have forged a
data culture
have created a
data-driven
organization
49
%
24
%
24
%
41
%
39
%
have a well-articulated
data strategy
30
%
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