Data culture is the principle of using information to drive operations and strategies. While everyone believes that data is crucial for a successful marketing plan, not everybody knows how to harness data to their own advantage.
Fortunately, there are so many solutions today to help even small businesses implement a data-driven culture. For instance, a Data historian system will help aggregate, analyze, and archive massive amounts of historical and real-time data.
It does not matter if the collected data seemed disparate, the system itself will sort them into categories, depending on the parameters that you set.
According to the 2018 survey by Tech Pro Research, more enterprises have increased their budgets to address digital disruption. Their expenses are geared toward the reduction of paper use in the office, skills enhancement, automation of processes, and machine-learning algorithms to drive sales.
Meanwhile, IDC projected that businesses would have spent $2 trillion for digital transformation efforts in 2019.
But a data culture need not be overwhelming. The crucial thing is you take one step at a time. Here are some tips on how you can start changing your mindset and use data to your advantage:
- Investing in the right tools — As already mentioned, a Data historian system would be a vital tool in your new journey. It is different from a business intelligence solution, for instance, which allows you to shift your marketing strategies to find leads and increase lead conversion. In contrast, the historian system will help you rationalize your operational data.
- Training your personnel — Machine-learning tools are fully automated, which means they will provide you with an exhaustive report regarding the mined data. However, it would help if your staff is data-literate. It also means that your organization should draft guidelines or glossary that should be learned by your team by heart. As an alternative, companies now hire data scientists or outsource data interpretation to a third-party service.
- Set your metrics — The only way to gauge success is to lay down benchmarks. Admittedly, this could be tough for any company that is only starting to adopt a data-driven culture. Fortunately, business intelligence tools and data historian systems have preset metrics that can be customized to fit your organization. Whether you want to measure yourself against your competitor or your assigned goals, the apps will help you get there.
- Open all channels — With machine-learning tools, the more data you feed into the system, the more accurate the predictions would be. That is why no circuit, terminal, or department in your organization should be spared from being hooked on the tool. Feed it all the data it needs, and you will be rewarded with factual results nearly every time.
Adopting a new culture can be tough, but it can be made easier with the use of new software solutions. Also, the shift in mindset should start at the top. It means that the CEO and executives should lead by example. When enforcing policies, these should be anchored on data so that employees will readily see the benefits, as well as the justification for the changes.
The transition will get easier, especially if you will see the results. When everybody recognizes that the data-centric goals are for the good of the organization, they are more likely to rally behind any new venture.
