Winning with a Data-Driven Strategy

Companies need to become data-driven to meet their operational goals, but they face an array of obstacles.

Making decisions based on gut feelings no longer suffices. A data-driven approach to decisions and action is becoming necessary for growth, customer retention and competitiveness. Often though, even companies that possess the data they need and invest in powerful technology fail to use that data to drive the business. Data may persist in silos or vary in format from department to department. Data reliability can pose a problem. Or the organization’s strategy for implementing data initiatives can hamper progress, such as when tech investments don’t link to usage cases. Piecemeal, unit-level initiatives will fail to gain traction.

Leaders should integrate data with...