By Deepak Mittal (Co-founder & CEO, TO THE NEW)

Data is the new reality of the current age. As the Covid-19 pandemic clutched all businesses under its tight grip, there has been a drastic change in communication and decision-making. Though data and analytics have always been critical to a company's success, the pandemic drove everyone to step up their data efforts, functioning as a sort of wake-up call.

Unanticipated business challenges that cropped up overnight needed to be addressed instantly, and only those with a data-driven approach were able to change their gears prudently in such unprecedented times. Such data-driven decision processes are based on insightful evidence rather than intuitions.

According to a report by Forbes, a massive amount of data has been generated in the past decade, growing from 1.2 trillion gigabytes to 59 trillion gigabytes. However, only some are able to make good use of this pool of wealth, while others fail to tap into its potential.

This article summarizes some current challenges and solutions for businesses as they look to become data-centric.

Challenges

  • Lack of data-driven culture. Various organizations' management often hesitates in employing data and analytics. This mentality of rigid bureaucracy and a conventional attitude can prevent some businesses from widening their perspective, limiting the adoption of data analytics tools.
  • Inaccessible and siloed data. The underlying problem for many organizations is that their data remains in silos, thus limiting access to all stakeholders.
  • Limitations of legacy systems to cope with the new data-driven culture. Even if organizations believe in harnessing the data to make critical decisions, they lack a scalable solution to analyze and visualize complex data as it grows.
  • Budget constraints. The additional cost of employing data and analytics can hold numerous businesses from adopting analytics tools. Organizations might fail to understand that an appropriate data management strategy can reduce the overhead costs of various complex data infrastructures, help measure the ROI and understand the customer better.

Solutions

  • Creating a data-driven culture. Business decisions should be tied back to the data to ensure you are not making decisions based on beliefs, past experiences or any conscious or unconscious bias.
  • Building a single repository of data. Centralizing the data in one place can help organizations deal with exponential data growth and provide them with relevant data points. This is where data lakes and other business intelligence solutions come in, giving the organizations control over their data.
  • Leveraging modern technologies. Using machine learning for data analytics can be an effective way to maximize the potential of the data. ML can automate repetitive tasks, process data in real time, reduce human intervention and produce accurate results.
  • Budget allocation. Special budget allocation can ensure its proper implementation across different levels and simplify things, translating to cost savings.

Needless to say, having strong data practices in place is a quintessential requirement for new-age, modern businesses. We are in the midst of rapidly advancing times, and the Covid-19 pandemic has heightened the adoption of data and analytics to generate powerful insights. Businesses must think and act intelligently and latch onto this new way of decision-making that would provide them with a significant competitive edge post-Covid-19.

See the full article here.