How Data is Fueling & Accelerating Digital Transformation
A recent report from Twilio found that the global pandemic has sped up digital transformation strategies at 97% of companies. Not only that, but 79% of companies have also seen their digital transformation budgets increased in response to global consumer patterns shifting. The widespread closure of offices, with the subsequent and inevitable move to remote working; extended lockdown periods that have forced brick and mortar stores to quickly pivot to e-commerce; and the abrupt stop to face-to-face entertainment which has seen online platform subscriptions soar, are some of the examples that illustrate how the events of 2020 have forced businesses in all industries to prioritize digital technologies to weather the storm and stay afloat.
At the center of this urgent and necessary shift to digital is data. Every action that consumers take — ordering clothes online, buying groceries for delivery, signing up for a new streaming service — generates data. We already knew that data volumes were growing at an alarming rate year on year before 2020, but when physical interaction stopped being an option, already growing data volumes skyrocketed. This is both a challenge and an opportunity for companies looking to take advantage of this broadened view into consumer behaviors and preferences. If done well, data analytics can fuel digital transformation and take an organization to the forefront of digital innovation.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the role data plays in fuelling and accelerating digital transformation. We’ll also look at deployment options and their impact on digital strategies, and the role automation plays in helping data teams become more agile.
To capitalize on the opportunities data offers, organizations must embrace data analytics as a powerful force underpinning decision-making across all areas of the business, whether supporting data experts or data consumers. Companies that apply data analytics to drive insights that support business decision-making can significantly help and accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. But this isn’t easy to achieve, and many organizations have found the technology they had in place before 2020 couldn’t cope with the new demands brought on by the pandemic. McKinsey & Company released a report in October 2020 which found that COVID-19 has accelerated the digitization of operations by three to four years. This is in line with Exasol’s report released in September 2020 that found 84% of organizations globally were under increasing pressure to make faster decisions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Worryingly, Exasol’s report also found that 58% of organizations lacked access to real-time insights at the time the research was conducted. It is therefore not surprising to learn as a consequence that more than half of the respondents to McKinsey’s research said they are investing in technology for competitive advantage or refocusing their entire business around digital technologies.
Deploying the right technology to support the widespread use of data across the business is essential because, when data is used to its full potential, it can help unlock substantial opportunities. Data-driven insights into consumer behavior is just one of the ways in which organizations can gain a competitive advantage if they can harness the power of analytics. Stock management, forecasting demand, supply chain management, and risk assessment, to name a few, are other examples of areas where data analytics can significantly add value to a business. But, at a time when volumes are exploding and time windows for decision making are shortening, businesses cannot afford to wait for insights. That’s why working with an analytics stack that can deliver answers when you need them, no matter how huge the data volumes, is crucial for organizations to be able to reap the benefits of a data-first approach.
This is where the cloud comes into play.
