Organizations have made headway in data-driven decision making and actioning, but the journey is far from over:

• Today, half of organizations say their decision making is completely data-driven, a significant increase on those that said they promoted data-driven decision making in 2018.

• Decision-making approach in organizations, however, is majorly reactive – looking at what happened in the past or why it happened.

• Further, fewer than half (43%) are able to monetize their data and insights through products and services.

• Only a minority (39%) are able to turn data-driven insights into a sustained competitive advantage. Business executives do not trust their data

• Major gaps exist between the trust that business executives have in the data they receive and how technical executives perceive trust levels. Only 20% of business executives trust the data, but 62% of technical executives believe their business users do trust it.

• Poor data quality is a major contributor to this lack of trust: just 27% of business executives say they are happy with data quality (but, again, there is a mismatch – 54% of technical executives think that their business users are happy with data quality).

• Trusted data is critical for organizational agility and an organization’s ability to monetize data.

• While 56% of technical executives believe their data/ analytics strategy is aligned with the business strategy, only 38% of business users share that view.

• Similar gaps between technology executives and business executives also exist in areas such as data collection, visibility, and data access policies. Data masters enjoy significant financial benefits compared to the rest of the sample

• When we assess organizations against critical dimensions of data mastery, only about one in six organizations can be categorized as “data-powered” (we call these the “data masters”).

• These data masters significantly outperform the rest of the cohorts on financial parameters such as revenue generation and profitability. Looking at average performance for FY 2019–20, data masters realized a significant performance advantage compared to the rest:

– 70% higher Revenue per Employee

– 245% higher Fixed Asset Turnover

– 22% higher profitability.

• Data masters enjoy a performance advantage of between

30% and 90% in various metrics across customer engagement, top-line benefits, operational efficiency, and cost savings.

How can an organization become a data master?

Organizations should focus on three priorities:

• Data activation: this refers to the use of data in end-toend business processes to secure business outcomes i.e., transforming data and insights into actions. To achieve this, organizations need to:

– Align their data and analytics strategy with the business strategy

– Build business users’ trust in data

– Establish an AI and analytics CoE to assist business teams

– Foster a data-powered culture by strengthening “data citizenship.”

• Data enablers: these are the key capabilities necessary for building data-powered enterprises and include infrastructure, governance, and operations. Organizations need to:

– Strengthen data collection processes and improve data quality

– Invest in data landscape modernization to get agility in data activation

– Operationalize data and analytics through DataOps and MLOps

– Adapt their data governance as data mastery evolves.

• Data advantage: this is about creating a competitive advantage, particularly by leveraging external data, including data from hyperscalers. To realize this, organizations need to be able to leverage external data to enhance their insights.