Online traffic has grown by 25% worldwide from 2021 to 2022. This growth reflects both a significant increase in the number of Internet users and an increase in the number of businesses offering content, products, and services online. More online activity rhymes with a better data strategy.
As more businesses move online, business leaders are realizing the power and importance of data for developing better digital business strategies. This article examines the topic of data strategy from different angles and provides the best possible insight.
Why is data analytics important?
Doing business requires constant adjustment and improvement. Businesses need to track and analyze various key metrics to adapt to changing market conditions and gain a competitive advantage. These metrics include:
- Results of business investment
- Increase or loss of revenue over time
- Marketing campaign effectiveness
- New trends in the market
- Market audience development
How to overcome your data strategy challenges?
Data can provide a huge competitive advantage, but building a framework for your data strategy is not easy. As a result, only 26% of companies surveyed say they have successfully become data-driven. The rest still have challenges to overcome. Here are some of the challenges that companies might face:
A changing data landscape
Over the past decade, businesses have benefited enormously from targeted marketing enabled by third-party data providers like Instagram ads. But as Google and other big data providers phase out third-party cookies, many companies are wondering what the future of data will look like. This change also addresses a larger issue. New technologies, consumer sentiment, and changing regulations impact the types of data available and how we use it. For businesses, this means keeping a close eye on the ever-changing data landscape.
Aligning teams & data strategy
Companies struggle to understand how to help teams work together and use data to track and achieve common goals. There is a different interest in metrics among different business units. Alone, it’s fine for the sales team to focus on sales metrics and the marketing team to focus on marketing metrics. But what if these entities need to work together? Confusion over key metrics is a common challenge.
How do you create a strong data strategy?
So far, we’ve overlooked the importance of data and some challenges. No one wants to pay a provider to walk in and tell them what they already know. Furthermore, no one wants to spend money on data and analytics solutions without seeing a return.
At the end of your data strategy assessment, develop a plan for how you will collect, store, manage, share, and use your data and a coordinated plan for exactly how to proceed. To that end, the folks at ZUAR can help you with these things, as they provide various solutions for improving your data strategy. Now let’s see how we can actually manipulate some data to generate insights that enable our strategies.
Transparency: share data across the business
It’s worth remembering that information was once a scarce commodity. At least, they were much harder to come by than they are today. Exclusive access to information empowered individuals, so they stuck with it and shared it sparingly.
But in today’s information and data-rich world, it’s counterproductive. Skipping insight is bad for business. A culture of sharing is much healthier. Sharing insights makes everyone smarter and empowers them to make suggestions and act on what the data is telling them.
Readability: present data that anyone can understand
Data access is one thing. Understanding what that means is another thing. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to ensure that your data strategy is one in which data is accessible and understandable. There are many ways to communicate data, including through data visualizations, infographics, and dashboards. But visualization isn’t everything. Also, you have to tell a story. Each visualization should clearly convey the meaning of the data and its importance.
Actionability: where to take actions
Teams need access to data insights that are not only understandable but also actionable. That is, it should highlight a specific problem (or opportunity) that needs to be addressed.
Set up processes to share data insights across your organization. First, identify the insights you have access to today that could benefit others in your organization.
How to build a data strategy
Your data strategy will vary greatly depending on the size, nature, and complexity of your organization. But the ambition and data capabilities of decision-makers also play a role. So what does a data strategy look like in practice? We have data strategy templates and case studies to help. Again, templates and strategies start by aligning your data strategy with your business strategy and identifying the problem that needs to be solved. The strategy then moves to the “implementation process.” These are processes for carrying out objectives. These include data governance procedures, technology and infrastructure, training and skills, and change management.
A data strategy has many components, but it must begin with understanding the key problems that need to be solved. With this critical understanding, you can maximize the value your data can bring to your business. It’s not about collecting as much data as possible; it’s about collecting the most valuable data.