Yes! Most businesses don’t have a unified approach to data. It might sound like a huge sweeping statement, but it’s one that we would hang our hats on.

We rarely come across businesses that have their:

• Data centralized and provided as a service to all the different units around the organization.
• Data readily available in the forms needed, allowing it to be utilized across all their technology platforms, whatever the requirements are.
• Different business units synced up on what they are trying to achieve with data, with a clear set of KPIs specific to each business unit that are all tied to the overarching strategy and goals of the business.

Here are a few questions that will likely resonate with you.

Does your company do any of the following:

• Buy technology that doesn’t work together all of the time?
• Invest in technology without your knowledge?
• Invest in technology that has overlapping functionality with existing technology?
• Buy technology without an overarching strategic view?
• Operate in silos?

If the answer is “Yes” to any of the above, it’s a sign that your company doesn’t have a unified approach to data.

There are 4 areas that we look at when it comes to having a unified approach to data:

1. Strategy and vision
2. Technology and systems
3. Set-up (Organization structure/silos)
4. Communication

Using decades of collective experience working in digital and data, we’ve developed a modular approach to guarantee we deliver value quickly and consistently. Our 4D’s framework allows us to work with clients at any stage of their data journey.

Here are our 4D’s:

• Discover – we gain an overview of the whole business through a Data Maturity Assessment (DMA), stakeholder interviews, a review of tools/technology, high-level roadmaps and capabilities.

• Define – we collate information gathered from the organization’s people and technologies to define a roadmap for what the vision should look like, what the data the strategy is and how to collect all the data into one place to bring the data strategy to life.

• Develop – this is the real outcome of Discover and Define. We work closely with all key stakeholders during this phase to define success before mapping the existing technological architecture and developing a plan to improve and scale it.

• Deliver – delivering technical solutions whilst supplying the right level and combination of resources to achieve the required objectives at each stage.

Our Data Maturity Assessment within our Discover phase is the perfect tool to uncover problems that prevent businesses from having a unified approach to data.

One of the most interesting things about the DMA can be the range of scoring given by the stakeholders.

We asked the stakeholders of one of our clients to score their organization from 1 to 10 (1 = strongly disagree and 10 = strongly agree) on the following statement:

“The organization has well-defined data-driven objectives aligned to the vision”. 

They scored an average of 4.8, but the scoring range was as low as 1 and as high as 10. Results like this make it very clear that they need to work on being more unified in their approach to data.

With this client, as part of our Develop phase, we brought all stakeholders into a half-day workshop and, by the end, we all agreed on what the data strategy should be going forward. Up to this point, there had never been a meeting where all of those stakeholders had been in one place to discuss this. This could have only happened through all the things that had surfaced from the DMA.

If your organization’s approach to data is not currently unified, our Data Maturity Assessment is the perfect tool to identify your strengths and weaknesses and will help align all key stakeholders on strategic data objectives. Get in touch with us at hello@bedatasolutions.com to speak to one of our experienced consultants and start your journey to becoming a data-driven/informed organization.