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Statistics show that organisations with a strong focus on using data to support decision making, have proven advantages over their competitors. A report from the McKinsey Global Institute, shows that data-based companies are 23 times more likely to acquire customers, 6 times more likely to retain customers and 19 times more likely to be successful compared to their competitors.
What Are the Impacts of Being Data-Driven?
Improvements to the quality of decision making: Business decisions, which are sometimes based on subjective experience, will no longer be made without the back up of solid evaluation, based on data. From choosing the visual features of a new product, to strategic decisions on the development of new markets, appropriate data collection, cleaning and analysis will enable key evidence to be incorporated and provide managers with facts to support strategic decisions.
Increased profitability: With the help of data, continuous improvements to internal processes are made, costs are optimised and business forecasting is improved. For example, the marketing department will have reliable facts about the characteristics of target customers, production and logistics managers will have data to help organise product storage and demand, and the HR department will be able to optimise the recruitment process based on when staff will be needed the most.
Adaptability: In highly competitive industries, companies that can adapt quickly are the least affected by competitors and changing trends. Monitoring information such as sales data and industry trends, improves the customer knowledge base and helps to anticipate movements in the market, allowing strategies to be changed quickly and moved towards new objectives.
Where Can I Find Data and How Do I Use It?
Managers often ask themselves where they can find the data that can allow them to improve the company. The truth is, in many cases the data already exists within the company, but there are no procedures for collecting, cleaning and analysing it.
The web: Carrying out Web Analytics activities means that data can be extracted from the internet by intercepting the most searched keywords, the most popular content with users, the most frequently asked questions on search engines and the most popular sites within the sector.
Data mining: This is carried out by linking data sets from the above work and from the SEO audit, with information found on social networks, the corporate CRM which records the purchasing behaviour of customers and the data set from the activity of lead generation, through landing pages or forms to subscribe to the company newsletter. It is then a question of processing the data, making it homogeneous, and taking out the data that is not relevant to the objectives.
The company report: The Data Analyst is then called upon to carry out the most complex part of the process, which is the analysis of the data to identify trends and reliable information. A report will then be produced that includes an analysis of users’ behaviours and needs, transforming them into information that is easy to understand. It is at this stage that the analysed data becomes a fundamental resource for the company, providing information that can support strategic decisions to develop markets and the business.
Article updated on: 09 August 2023
Written by
Talent Garden, Digital Skills Academy
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