Data: The world’s most valuable resource
In an ultra-connected world, data has risen to become a precious and in demand asset, with 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated by internet users each day. New technologies have enabled us to collect, analyze and understand much of this data, accelerating the value of a coherent and tailored data strategy.
For businesses, data has never been more accessible, and this presents an opportunity to learn more about customers – from their wants and needs to their expectations and attitudes. It also allows companies to improve business operations by analyzing performance and where operations can be optimized.
To compete, companies need to truly embrace being data-driven. By leveraging insights ingrained in data and investing in data initiatives, companies can create and bring to market products, services and solutions that meet customer demands and needs.
What many businesses are missing, however, is the key to unlocking this business essential: A tailored data strategy. A more targeted data strategy helps businesses by sifting and analyzing data effectively to refine their understanding of their customer base. While most businesses understand the importance of data and technological innovation, the future of data strategy needs to prioritize insights-based data collection and move away from collecting data for data’s sake.
The importance of an insights-based data strategy
Data is not as complicated as it seems. In essence, data is the customer – it reflects their needs and opinions on everything, from how much they enjoyed the latest TV show on Netflix to their financial situation.
In a business sense, collecting data has many benefits which are already evident. That being said, many businesses simply collect as much data as possible, with no strategy or objective about what the data means, what it tells them about their customers, and how it can be used to drive business outcomes. Knowing your customer is not just about tracking their behaviors and attitudes online. Indeed, businesses can go much further and develop an insights-based data strategy to tap into the data’s full potential.
Firstly, companies need to question why they are collecting data. By focusing on targeted data collection, businesses can learn more about the customers that matter to them. One way of achieving this is by creating an always-on data model, for example by using a best-in-breed stack built around a central data layer. Using this central data layer, businesses can leverage consistent and compliant data sets to serve multiple purposes, such as building a machine learning model to automatically provide personalized information or a live data analytics dashboard to discover new customer insights.
Building this in practice takes time, and building it into your business culture may take even longer. To drive business outcomes and stand out from competitors, however, businesses need to embrace insights-based data strategies, or risk losing out as connectivity increases through the rise of new technologies.
Leveraging data in the future to drive business growth
In the future, data-driven innovation will continue to be a priority for businesses across the world. With new technologies disrupting all sectors, adopting the right technology and data strategy to drive business growth is essential to a company’s success.
Today, businesses need to wake up to the benefits of a targeted data strategy, and how learning more about the customers that matter can improve products, services and in turn business performance and growth.
Listening to your customer is essential and we must therefore design products and services that meet their demands and needs, rather than creating new technologies and solutions without the end-user in mind. The future of data strategy – through an insights-based, targeted data collection model – will be integral to your business success.
About the Author
Jieke Pan is CTO and VP Engineering at Mobiquity Europe. Jieke has over 15 years’ of experience in software engineering, solution architecture and technical leadership, with industrial domain experience across healthcare, eCommerce, digital banking, cloud and digital innovation. He started his career as researcher in the network security domain, where he also obtained his masters degree. As a software engineer and solution architect, he has worked for global companies such as Siemens, Sony and Infor. In 2017, he joined Mobiquity, where he has continued to build his technical and personal leadership experience. As a CTO, Jieke is a thought leader on how to use technology as a tool to achieve business outcomes.
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