2021 a good year for take off.
This past year we were able to learn a lot. It presented us with great challenges at a personal, family, community, business, national, regional and global level. It made us understand what was important and what was redundant.
Those of us who work in the technology sector had to create the future we envisioned for 2030. We lived a science fiction movie that teleported us in time. I am talking about digital transformation and all the different ways there is to call it. I am talking about the acceleration that was taking place not only because some technologies such as Data Analysis, Predictive Models, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, etc. were being consolidated, but also because together they produced grater acceleration; and when others such as Augmented Reality and Quantum Computing were added the acceleration that occurs is exponential.
Even thinking and working on all of this I have never imagined how much it was going to advance at a global level in a single year. Seeing people of all ages pay their bills, use their internet banking, order food with their phones, have virtual meetings, watch an NBA game with others on a digital platform was unimaginable.
The whole situation impacts and reflects on companies. I have studied several reports with very interesting surveys, for example the one carried out by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) “2021 CEO Study: Find your essential” , as well as that of McKinsey “How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point—and transformed business forever” where respondents form all around the world reflect upon the impact of COVID-19 on their organizations and markets.
In the IBV study we can see some interesting discoveries, “There’s a higher expectation about the role of business in society than a year ago,” says Alex Gorsky of Johnson & Johnson. “It’s become part of the vernacular in a much more significant way. Expectations have changed.” As a member of the b-corp movement this is not a strange phrase to me. Companies with a purpose that think about the social and environmental impact that their actions carry out will have more and more relevance. Today our collaborators are concerned about for what and how the results of their work are used, but there is no doubt that technology as a vehicle for innovation will bring greater well-being and better results.
McKinsey’s study clearly describes the impact that the pandemic had on the way consumers and companies interact. All consumption moves towards digital channels, thereby demanding drastic changes in all computer systems such as usability, means of payments, security, performance, coverage of benefits, etc.
But I am going to focus on a topic I have been working on for a long time: how to prepare a company to be Data Driven. In other words, what conditions must it have to base its decisions on data.
Obviously, one blog is not going to be enough, but I am going to start with some basic things, with the situation mentioned before all the clients of a company demand digital interactions, through them we have a lot of information that allows us to understand our customer better.
What each of these companies will have to do in order to use the information to make the best decisions will depend on the level of analytical maturity of the company.
But first things first, if we do not have a good data governance, we will not be able to build a solid and evolutionary analytical solution that allows us to grow quickly and nimbly. Just as the foundations are the most important to construct a building, the data governance is the foundations of our analytical solution.
Does this imply that I will not have analytical solutions that accompany the time to market? The answer is no, since we can build them in an incremental and evolutionary way, but without losing sight of the guidelines that are established from the beginning.
Gustavo Mesa, my colleague, wrote several blogs about this subject and an ebook, in the latter he said:
All the organizations today manage the life cycle of data, with different degrees of intention, which is why it is common for quality problems to be seen of data that has an impact on risks, loss of customers or fines for errors in regulatory information, loss of business opportunities due to not being able to exploit the data in time with the right tools or because it is very expensive to obtain the data. Sometimes these types of errors are not visible and if they are more related to the impediment of being able to exploit the data in an optimal way or better than what is currently done, due to issues related to the trust of the data, the availability of them and even to the lack of knowledge of the data that they have and that could be used.
An effective implementation of initiatives that aim to improve Data Management, this is to provide it with greater intentionality, requires time and learning to advance the maturity of the organization regarding working with information as a strategic asset.
There are usually a series of errors when executing this type of initiative. These errors can be grouped into three categories: Need, Leadership and Implementation of the initiative.
Clearly, these three aspects are the ones we work on the most when incorporating the analytics into an organization. I have had the opportunity to see and analyze several organizations of all sizes, industries and from different parts of the world, and it is amazing that we still see these unsolved problems.
Nowadays, with these worldwide changes as a result of the pandemic, it is the moment to first think, correct and run later.
Data governance references: