Establishing a Data-Driven Culture: Where to Start

• Gather data and interpret models and patterns
• Extract valuables and analyze them
• Determine based on this analysis what next steps to take
• Base all strategies on facts and data as a central authority

A data-driven culture is used across companies from top to bottom, to always stay on the same page in organizational decisions and strategies. 

The advantage of this approach lies in the feeling of certainty: data helps improve the safety of the outcome and brings forward more success.

Why Is It Important to Build a Data-Driven Culture

Тhe volume of available data is expected to grow to an estimated 175 zettabytes by 2025, according to a recent study. Using that data the right way could be the start of true business excellence for many organizations.

The importance of building a data-driven culture is connected directly to that excellence, pushed forward by choosing opportunities based on data. In short: data cannot be replaced when it comes to having the right insights for future investments.

Other important reasons for establishing a data-driven culture in your organization include:

• Analytics grows increasingly important providing insights into how to achieve the best client satisfaction
• Data can enhance core competencies and raise efficiency, as well as reveal bottlenecks, waste and even show the potential fixes for pinpointed problems
• Data analysis reduces costs and improves overall function in all departments
• Data is the guiding light for finding new opportunities to grow a company’s revenue, by showing clearly both internal resources and external prospects
• Data can find the marketing trends an organization needs to see to confidently adjust the strategies it uses

Overall, companies that use a data-driven approach are best prepared to respond to the rapidly changing marketing and customer demands. Pivoting and navigating them with the help of data is sure to bring a new kind of maturity and effectiveness to the overall business strategy.

Benefits of a Data-Driven Culture

In the business environment today, data is the main force behind increased business agility, fast response, and focus. According to a study by Statista, 62% of business leaders say that a fast decision-making process is the number one advantage of becoming data-driven.

So, it’s important to look at and understand the benefits of establishing a data-driven culture in your organization. The best way to explore them is by looking at where they are most useful per the company’s needs, as follows:

Launching New Products and/or Services

Through data, every department quickly focuses on the right way to go,

because data shows what customers want, like, and expect, builds a history, and improves based on that history

Monitoring the Competition

With data, organizations stand their ground in the ever-changing marketing world with confidence – because through data, you can monitor and analyze the competitors’ actions and gain insight into what customers want

Improvement of Collaboration

Data provides every team across all departments with real-time information about needed changes and new opportunities, as well as a good overview of what is happening and illuminates paths for what to do next.

Optimization of Costs

By following the sales and expenses data, companies find patterns that help with informed decisions and cost optimization.

Targeting the Right Audience

Using customer data brings the best strategy with targeting – it simply narrows down the options to the right decision.

Insight to Action

Every person across the company has the advantage to quickly be able to link insight to action, save time and add much-needed structure to decisions. 

Through data, companies learn how to stop leaping in the dark or focus only on intuition, but rather transform the risk into knowledge. Rooting decisions in data is the shift that makes all the difference and stops the hazards of guessing.

How Data Culture Adds Business Value

Data-driven culture across an organization has the potential to bring the traditional management model into an up-to-date and ever-evolving approach towards efficiency and success. Data can be a goldmine for businesses and here is why.

More Access Than Ever Before

Data accumulation and data analytics bring unprecedented visibility and access to all business units. Optimizing data in such a way that it’s not only a few individuals who can see the full picture, but everyone on every team is key to bringing uniform decisions and staying up-to-date in strategy

Manageable Business Goals

Data-driven culture brings the value of the controlled small steps head. It essentially breaks down any big project into manageable and smaller pieces of action to take. Data helps with each step of this process, bringing forward what tasks to complete and in what way, then analyzing the progress to see if any adjustments are needed.

Better Company Growth

Companies that adopt a data-driven culture can see better the overall market trends and bring their A-game to the table easier. Trends, as well as a Forrester report, show that data-driven companies are now growing at an average of more than 30% annually.

No More Unnecessary Risks

Data helps companies remain informed in a way that minimizes unnecessary risks and provides good management of all assets. With data, risks are controlled to stay on a level that will not bring an excess of losses down the road.

Data unlocks the potential of any project in a way that lets companies stay calm about the outcomes – they are already assessed along with potential threats. This leads to an exclusive way of smart operating across the organization and can increase the business value for any company.

Steps To Build a Data-Driven Culture in Your Organization With Slingshot

Building a data-driven culture that will seamlessly serve your company in its goals can happen easier than you think. Thanks to the digital revolution that seems to be never-ending, technology brings many options for agile data usage and analytics, seamlessly combining all needed components to achieve it. 

Slingshot is an all-in-one digital workspace with a strong focus on data, providing any team with the ability to coordinate and collaborate with no disruptions, and effective strategy-making on the spot, through smart functionalities. To achieve the effective data-driven culture you’re striving for, it’s good to understand the main pillars that frame it. They are as follows:

Leadership

The build of the data-driven mindset should start at the top of any organization, with managers deliberately leading their teams towards actively embracing data as the most important starting point for any decision. This includes using data daily and displaying it digitally with access for whomever it concerns, keeping KPIs visible through different channels, and always making a point for looking at the metrics before making a decision.

Trusting Data

Put data at the center as the single source of truth for your company to eliminate hearsay or guessing. Human intuition has its place in life, but it’s always better to rely on facts and expand data insights across all departments, to lead with trust and transparency.

Commitment

If you want your organization to be data-driven, you need to be consistent with your decision of using data. Use data at the forefront of employee coaching, tie your business goals to data analytics and invest in technology, to make data accessible and always present.

Following the Metrics

It’s vital to follow the right metrics in every business effort you make. Set goals by looking at historical data, measure success by analyzing data and ensure the right data gets to the right people, able to gather the direction of the next steps for the organization via them.

Data Literacy

Strategize around having your traditional business users understand data and adjust to using it daily through the adoption of a data catalog, using dashboards for centralized discussion around decisions, etc.

Training in Data

As we said just now, having data literacy and understanding is crucial, but having the ability to turn data into actionable insight is the real goal here. Make sure you offer the people in your team enough options to learn more about data, use data-driven tools daily and depend on them for always leading with a data mindset.

Slingshot incorporates all the features that establish a data-driven culture in a simple, but efficient way. Integration with Office 365, Google Suite, and AI features helps users go from insights to action in a matter of seconds. You have all your projects with their goals, stages, and analytics at each stage in one place.