Data-driven culture

In a world guided by increasingly frequent disruptions and changes, organizations face complex challenges and an increasingly volatile environment, of ambiguity and uncertainty, due to factors that are often out of control and that evolve over time.

This generates an urgent demand from organizations to adapt to the conditions imposed by the new competitive reality, being a necessary condition the adoption of a new perspective and changes in attitudes in the face of the challenges arising from this whole process.

And in this scenario, despite generating a lot of information in their daily activities in the various information systems, they are unable to extract the maximum from them, due to not having a data-driven culture, and processes established with trained people who are able to give relevance to the data in the form of actionable insights.

In this case, the analysis of the data generated at the consumer contact points with the company, whether through digital or physical channels, allows the identification of different consumer profiles, the understanding of their needs and desires, and the establishment of communication strategies aimed at for each of them.

The New Digital Consumer

This Knowledge Management process in the organization, allows greater innovation in its offer of products and services and assists in the definition of the strategy, tactical actions and in the generation of recommendations for the company’s decision-making process.

And for this process to become viable, the creation of areas responsible for providing decision makers with actionable information and promoting the generation of knowledge for the business, cannot occur in isolation, but within a larger strategy of a culture driven by data in the process of Digital Transformation of the organization.

Because there is a new, more demanding digital consumer, with higher expectations about the quality of the customer experience of products and / or services and who still considers the price and cost / benefit factors in the decision-making process of a purchase.

In this context, Digital Transformation strategies must consider a customer-centered approach, which prioritize the understanding and satisfaction of their needs and desires, in all physical and digital channels and try to create a tailored customer experience and an authentic relationship. with this new digital consumer.

The creation of a culture geared towards innovation, must also be Data-Driven, as data will be the “inputs” that will give life and nurture collaborative processes.

Data Governance

The collaborative process must adopt a Data Governance strategy, which is present through processes that guarantee their quality and consistency.

Importantly, the establishment of common definitions in the treatment of data for greater standardization for all applications that use them, since they will supply the organization’s collaborative processes and the decision-making process.

This process is vital for the organization, as it guarantees greater reliability, precision and ultimately the value to be extracted from the data.

That is why, in an increasingly complex and uncertain world, data authentication and validation is an essential step in order to guarantee, in addition to the tripod, confidentiality, integrity and availability, its veracity, thus avoiding “variations” in the truth of the data , also promoting in the process, the mapping of the different sources of information used, the consolidation and the greater consistency of the data that will be the inputs of the collaborative flows that will provide the generation of value in the organization.

And that, whenever possible given the conditions of the organization, make use of a central repository (Data Lake) that facilitates the process of consulting information from the various departments and that also seeks to avoid reworking data entry, automating whatever possible, thus ensuring the best use of employees’ time to focus on activities with greater added value.

Data-Driven Journey

In this regard, teams within the collaborative process also need to seek to practice interdisciplinarity in solving complex problems, always trying to understand the challenges in an integral and systemic way and all its nuances, for a better result within the experimentation cycles.

Thus, the generation of value through data, within the Data-Driven Journey, involves the process of constant experimentation, which will foster continuous innovation in the form of actionable insights for the organization, with the increase of its accumulated intellectual capital.

Which in turn serves as a lever for generating value over time, reducing the organization’s time to market and making it more adaptable and responsive to constant market changes, preparing it to deal with complex scenarios and anticipating opportunities not foreseen by the competition, and in the face of better preparation and execution, allowing you to reap the fruits of success.

Best practices of Data Quality in Data Privacy Laws

And yet, with the advent of the new Data Privacy laws in Europe with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the LGPD (General Data Protection Law) in Brazil, it became a necessity to use the best practices regarding the treatment of data in organizations, in order to guarantee the compliance established in the legislations in force in each country.

Not only that, but it has become a prerequisite to meet the greater demand of the new digital consumer, more aware of the importance of his personal data, and also a necessary condition to compete internationally, since in many countries similar laws to the European GDPR are becoming the norm. Thus, once the requirements are met in order to be compliant, the organization gains a kind of quality “seal” regarding the respect of users’ data, which will reflect in a better brand positioning in the market that will open new business opportunities for the organization.

Finally, the support of the Board and all Stakeholders is essential for the process to materialize, so that the area has autonomy and the necessary structure so that it can operate and fulfill what is expected of it, in this case, the generation of insights actions and recommendations for the organization’s decision-making process.

Obs.: This article is an English translated version of my 2021 original article in Portuguese.

About the Author — Renato Azevedo Sant Anna

Digital Business & Insights Consultant, Thinker and Curator about the VUCA World, with a natural curiosity about the World and its complexity, multidisciplinary knowledge and the ability to produce actionable recommendations and insights about the competitive landscape.

Also a Mentor, Content producer (content writer), Instructor and Speaker on topics related to The Digital Era, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Future of Work, Artificial Intelligence Applications for Business and Consumer Behavior on digital channels.