How to become an insights-driven company?
More than a decade after the concept of big data became part of the lexicon, only a minority of companies have become insight-driven organizations—and culture may be the culprit.
January | 2021The amount of data available to organizations every day continues to proliferate at a staggering volume. But technologies such as analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) have the potential to help businesses make better use of these massive volumes of data. In an age of collaboration between humans and machines—what we call the “Age of With”1—organizations can gain advantage by designing systems in which humans and machines work together to improve the speed and quality of decision-making.
But not every organization is optimizing the opportunities available in the Age of With. Some do little or nothing with data to aid their decision-making. Others carry out analytics projects in pockets of the business. Far fewer consistently embed analysis, data, and evidence-based reasoning into their decision-making process.
Most large companies fall into the last two categories, as do all the companies surveyed recently by Deloitte.
It’s understandable why many companies feel they are far down the path of becoming an insight-driven organization. Many have invested in creating the requisite data initiatives, analytics, or data science groups. Many have created chief data officer (CDO) or chief analytics officer (CAO) organizations. The vast majority have invested in tactical solutions.
These evolutions seem natural. It has been more than a decade since the term “big data” became part of the lexicon. Many legacy issues that traditionally posed barriers have now been eliminated or reduced. These include the high cost of data storage, expensive proprietary software, and the need to devote capital to expensive data centers.
But what is the reality? How many companies have truly evolved into insight-driven organizations?