g-f(2)111 THE BIG PICTURE OF THE DIGITAL AGE, HBR, Why Is It So Hard to Become a Data-Driven Company?

Extra-condensed knowledge

• Thriving as a mainstream company today means being data driven.
• For the third consecutive year, investment in data and AI initiatives has been nearly universal, with 99.0% of firms reporting investment in data and AI according to findings from a newly released executive survey from NewVantage Partners, a strategic advisory firm that I founded in 2001 to advise Fortune 1000 companies on data leadership issues. But this year, despite growing investment, it appears most companies are struggling to maintain momentum.
• This year, a record 76.0% of respondents held the role of Chief Data Officer or Chief Analytics Officer. Survey respondents comprised the most senior corporate executives with oversight and responsibility for data within their firms.

Genioux knowledge fact condensed as an image

Condensed knowledge  

• Thriving as a mainstream company today means being data driven.
• For the third consecutive year, investment in data and AI initiatives has been nearly universal, with 99.0% of firms reporting investment in data and AI according to findings from a newly released executive survey from NewVantage Partners, a strategic advisory firm that I founded in 2001 to advise Fortune 1000 companies on data leadership issues. But this year, despite growing investment, it appears most companies are struggling to maintain momentum.
• This year, a record 76.0% of respondents held the role of Chief Data Officer or Chief Analytics Officer. Survey respondents comprised the most senior corporate executives with oversight and responsibility for data within their firms.
• Findings from this year’s survey suggest that even with record levels of committed investment, firms are continuing to struggle to derive value from their Big Data and AI investments and to become data-driven organizations.
• Often saddled with legacy data environments, business processes, skill sets, and traditional cultures that can be reluctant to change, mainstream companies appear to be confronting greater challenges as demands increase, data volumes grow, and companies seek to mature their data capabilities.
• Becoming a data-driven organization does not happen overnight. Building a data culture is a process. These efforts unfold over time. Today, Big Data and AI are mainstream, but there is still much work to be done.
• After nearly a decade of investment in data initiatives, are firms continuing to struggle in their efforts to become data-driven? 
• One answer is that becoming data-driven takes time, focus, commitment, and persistence. 
• Too many organizations minimize the effort or fail to correctly estimate the time which these kinds of wholesale business transformations require.
• Chief Data Officers and corporate data leaders should consider three pragmatic recommendations:
1. Organizations can benefit by focusing their data initiatives on clearly identified high-impact business problems or use cases. By starting where there is a critical business need, executives can demonstrate value quickly through “quick wins” that help a company realize value, build credibility for their investments in data, and use this credibility to identify additional high-impact use cases to build business momentum.
2. Companies must reexamine the ways that they think about data as a business asset of their organizations. Data flows like a river through any organization. It must be managed from capture and production through its consumption and utilization at many points along the way.
3. Data-driven business transformation is a long-term process that requires patience and fortitude. Organizations must show that they are in it for the long haul and stick with these investments and not lose patience or abandon efforts when results are not immediately forthcoming.

Category 2: The Big Picture of the Digital Age

[genioux fact produced, deduced or extracted from HBR]

Type of essential knowledge of this “genioux fact”: Essential Deduced and Extracted Knowledge (EDEK).

Type of validity of the "genioux fact". 

• Inherited from sources + Supported by the knowledge of one or more experts + Supported by a survey.

Authors of the genioux fact

Fernando Machuca

References

Why Is It So Hard to Become a Data-Driven Company?, Randy Bean, February 05, 2021, Harvard Business Review, HBR.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Randy Bean (@randybeannvp) is an industry thought leader, author, and CEO of NewVantage Partners, a strategic advisory and management consulting firm that he founded in 2001. He is a contributor to MIT Sloan Management Review, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and The Wall Street Journal. Contact him at rbean@newvantage.com.