Many firms have very little to show for all the investment they have put into data.
Thomas C. Redman, president of Data Quality Solutions, wrote a thoughtful accounting of the five elements that must come together to make any firm’s data strategy a success.
Redman writes in the Harvard Business Review:
…data require a range of concerted effort. At a minimum, HR must find new talent and train everyone in the organization, tech departments must bring in new technologies and integrate them into existing infrastructures, privacy and security professionals must develop new policies and reach deep into the organization to enforce them, line organizations must deal with incredible disruption, everyone must contribute to data quality efforts, and leaders must set off in new, unfamiliar directions. Adding to complications, data, technology, and people are very different sorts of assets, requiring different management styles. It’s a challenging transition. Many companies have tried to resolve their data quality issues with the latest technology as a shortcut (e.g., enterprise systems, data warehouses, cloud, blockchain), but these new systems have missed the mark.
It is important to remember that the goal is not simply to get all you can out of your data. Rather, you want to leverage your data in ways that create new growth, cut waste, increase customer satisfaction, or otherwise improve company performance. And “data” may present your best chance of achieving such goals. Successful data programs require concerted, sustained, properly-informed, and coordinated effort.
