Why Enterprises Need to be Data-Centric Now

A recent survey finds that data leaders are increasingly focused on using data in two ways: as revenue generator, and as a solution for marketing and sales problems.

Sage business thinkers have long espoused the value of being data-centric. Data-centric organizations demonstrate better decision making, improved customer experience, and enhanced operational efficiency.

Data-centric enterprises also stand to see higher returns with AI. In Marco Iansiti and Karim Lakhani’s book, “Competing on AI,” they argue that artificial intelligence is reinventing “the modern firm where processes are digitized and enabled by an AI factory that treats decision making as an industrial process.” The aim, they say, is an “AI factory which creates a virtuous cycle between user engagement, data collection, algorithm design, and improvement.” In this way, data is core to the future of business.

So where are businesses in their journey to becoming data centric? A recent survey covered in the Alation State of Data Culture Report, conducted by Wakefield Research, finds that data leaders are increasingly focused on using data in two ways:

These report findings reflect a clear change in how data is used now, as compared to the start of the COVID-19 crisis.

CDOs and CIOs are focused on growth. The report finds that 63% of data professionals surveyed believe their CDOs and CIO are focusing their data investment on enabling their businesses to grow. CIOs have told me repeatedly they want to be measured as their CEOs are measured. This report shows that data leaders or organizations are also focused on revival and upswing. Other key drivers for investment in data initiatives include:

Without question, many of these are interrelated. For example, digital transformation, customer intimacy, and product innovation have a strong interrelationship, which influences revival and upswing. Key to note is the change in focus, as growth has become top of mind, displacing the COVID-era key drivers of data initiatives, which were retrenchment and maintain. CIO Sharron Pitt described the past year as “more operational, more reactive, more productivity, more future options due to a cultural shift.”

The culture has shifted once more. Now, leaders are focused on growth and customer insights fueled by data. Given the focus on growth going forward, it’s not surprising that 61% of data leaders cite sales and/or marketing as top proponents for data and analytics initiatives. CIO Martin Davis recently claimed that “leaders must be fully engaged and connected with their business customers.”

The report demonstrates that it pays to be data centric, as data strategy is a key business capability; those with a go-forward ‘right to win’ are much more likely to make data central to decision making. The right to win—a business capabilities way of thinking—means that companies have a better than average chance of succeeding within a market.

Organizations with a data culture outperform those without.