Data is a crucial asset in today’s corporate world so much so that every business has become a data-driven business.
Key decision-makers are now awake to the fact that a functional data strategy can provide huge business potential. Proper data collection, analysis, and reporting provide high-value insights that help businesses achieve their objectives.
However, many businesses have serious challenges with their data management platforms and strategies. Some of the difficulties they face include such as poor relationships between stakeholders, cost overruns, among many other issues.
To help make your data strategy more effective, here are six mistakes you should avoid when creating your first data strategy.
1. Creating an Out-Of-Date Data Strategy
The world is constantly evolving to meet upcoming needs and trends. So, if you’re not constantly adapting to the changing trends, your company will be washed over to the wastelands.
Therefore, always choose a strategy that can adjust to current trends and customer preferences. Using an out-of-date data strategy will only be wasting valuable company resources.
2. Disregarding Your Company Goals and Objectives
The essence of a data strategy plan is to manipulate the data in order to achieve your goals and objectives for the future.
Do not choose the easy way out and develop a data platform simply for the sake of it. Instead, create a data strategy that will effectively bring you a stride closer to achieving your goal. The first step is to isolate your primary objectives and then figure out how you can leverage data to realize those key goals.
3. Ignoring Key Performance Indicators
You have to factor in the metrics you’re going to use to measure the success rate and overall efficiency of your data strategy. These metrics are called KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
Examples of reliable KPIs include customer satisfaction, internal process quality, employee satisfaction, net profit margin, gross profit margin, and financial performance index.
4. Using a Non-comprehensive Budget
The process of implementing a data strategy takes more than just the technical costs. You must budget for costs such as employee skills development and training, a data infrastructure system, and hiring or outsourcing talent to make the data platform possible.
5. Disregarding Certain Forms of Data
Data comes in various forms. It can be unstructured, semistructured, or structured. Most companies tend to cherry-pick among one or two the three while the rest. Unfortunately, this can lead to poorly-informed decisions based on partially accurate insights.
6. Not Considering the Ethical, Privacy, and Legal Issues Around Data
When implementing your data strategy, it’s important to take into consideration the ethical, privacy, and legal implications that come with dealing with data. Your customers need to trust you with their information if your data strategy is going to work.
The Bottom Line
Data is one of the biggest assets in your company and you must try to make it as faultless as possible.
However, some companies simply choose to wing it and end up making mistakes that prove detrimental in the long run. It’s important to avoid mistakes such as the ones highlighted in this article in order to have systematic success when it comes to implementing your data strategy.
