How to Get More Business Value Out of Data

Big data, data science, analytics, BI…data has been subjected to buzzword bingo over the years. Perhaps because of the hype, the results of big data initiatives often do not match the promises. Gartner estimated in 2016 that 60% of big data projects fail, and then revised that figure upwards to 85% one year later. Since then, the situation does not seem to be improving significantly in 2019, Gartner predicted that through 2022, only 20% of analytical insights will deliver business outcomes.Yet, almost all organizations know they need to get a handle on their data, not just for reasons of regulation and to comply with the law, but because of the business insights the data holds. When we go through the process of deriving analytical insights from an organization’s data, and then turn these into actionable intelligence, we often call this “data-driven decision-making” for short. In some ways this shorthand conjures up the wrong image, as if the data does all the hard work and magically present implementable answers to us. It is worth remembering there is no inherent agency or wisdom in the data, it is all down to how enterprises harness it.To put it another way, when a racehorse wins, it does not succeed in isolation. The factors driving its success include the jockey, the training regime, the horse’s heritage, diet and so on. Similarly, data can deliver success, but it needs to be tamed, harnessed and then put to work in order to achieve impactful results.