Time Is Now
Businesses are failing to contain and harness the potential of data.
80% of organizations will fail by 2025 because they do not take a modern approach to data and analytics governance.
Companies actively invest in business transformation. The most common topic, across businesses, industries, and markets, is data and data management. Companies subscribe to products and technologies, manage service providers, setup centers of excellence, engage advisors and consultants, acquire and train talent, and claim to build in-house capabilities ~ all to drive the business strategy. Only a few succeed.
Companies fail to stay in control of costs, realize full potential of their investments, grow revenues, and or generate sustainable profits. In response they question the readiness and maturity of products, service providers, advisors, consultants, talent, and their business leaders. They seek more investments from the Board to change, match pace, with fast-evolving technologies landscape. Invest again and fail to deliver promised results, again.
Companies fail because of their inability to adapt.
Data is the new normal. The foundation of business now rests on data. Companies must recognize evolving customer behavior, personalize product and or service, differentiate from competition, and respond timely to changing market conditions. Companies that fail to contain and harness the potential of data will vanish in no time.
80% of data and analytics initiatives focused on business outcomes will become essential capabilities by 2025.
Companies are looking for a second chance. Investments are focusing on people: data engineers, data scientists, data analysts, and business analysts, to build robust data architectures, and to process and analyze data. Companies are relying on a common approach, learning from their peers, on undertaking mammoth efforts that don’t easily deliver strategic insights. Efforts that have mostly failed to influence the outcomes, resulting in no or negative returns on investment. A variety of stakeholders, across-levels, engage in, work countless hours, setup projects, and define timelines, all to find that the goal post moved.
Engineers don’t trust data, they challenge the process of data creation and management. Business stakeholders don’t trust data, they challenge the process of arriving at the truth. Boards don’t trust the strategy, proposed by a divided house. The state of a company worsens when Business Stakeholders and Boards don’t have a view of the business strategy because Engineers, Business Analysts and Data Scientists are neck deep surviving the data tsunamis. Creating, processing, analyzing, and managing data drives the management focus away from the core purpose of business.
Companies fail to connect with and live their purpose.
Data is a prized asset. It is expensive to create and manage. Bringing this asset to life and managing it to drive business strategy is THE biggest investment that every company in every industry is making today. BUT they are uncertain of the outcomes, lack confident in the return on investment. Companies that fail to recognize the value of this prized asset are history.
15% will only succeed and outperform their peers, while most organizations will attempt trust-based data sharing programs by 2024.
The amount of data created over the next three years, by 2024, will be more than the data created over the past 30 years. Data is growing faster than a company’s ability to contain data. Forget harnessing the potential of data, the traditional investment approach undertaken by companies today is slowing the industry, the market, the ecosystem, and the GDP growth of developed and developing economies.
So what questions are keeping leadership up at night? Failing to recognize customer behavior? Develop and launch products and services? Enter new markets? Penetrate in existing markets? Serve customers? Solve complaints? Grow revenues? Control costs?
Sustain or grow market share? Deliver the promised returns to shareholders and investors? Instead, experience highest customer churn? Talent exodus? Management churn every year? Diluted and or diluting brand equity? Above all, now seeking liquidity to survive? Borrowing to sustain? Liquidating equity to fight revival? Companies are most vulnerable today and have no confidence in their business strategy. Uncertainty abounds and prevails.
Companies and business leaders fail to defy and inspire strategy.
Data is the backbone of business. The math of doing business changed with COVID 19 induced digital disruption. Margins have depleted. Business economics are not the same. Companies will not survive with the traditional business strategy, in the future. Today, most industry leaders have charted a plan to monetize data or are well on their way to define one. Revenue and business models are fast changing. Companies without a data backbone are waiting to crumble and or surrender to competition.
Resources are scarce.
Time is limited. This is THE second chance because there is no third chance.
Time Is Now. We must move forward and continue rising ahead.
Author | Rahul Arora
Stats | Gartner Predictions 2021
