From reports to data use-cases

We see how the euphoria of impacting your business by just using almost any kind of data is passing. What we see is that it is not that simple and becoming even harder to understand how and what to build to get ROI from using data. In 2022 Gartner trends we see Data Fabric as the way how to make accessible all the possible data in the organization:

https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/insights/top-technology-trends

But it also doesn't answer the most important business questions with the use of data:

• What data do we need to make better/faster decisions?
• What would be the business impact if we could predict something?

It shows we need to change our thinking about data analysis, from thinking about how data could be used or not to finding use-cases that with help of data could make an impact on the business. It means we are not just collecting possibly useful data in a data warehouse and then present in reports in all possible ways, but think of data-driven use-cases.

What is a data-driven use case? A data-driven use case is the small business scenario where the use of data could save time and reduce risks/bias. Imagine your sales team need to find new partners using Linkedin Sales Navigator. They need to check out the client base and product offering and decide whom to address. So if we want to use data thereby building a report it is not enough just present data, we need to put there some peace of knowledge about what is the best way how to do it, including narrative, step by step instruction and information about colleagues whom to ask. So, data-driven use cases should include the same amount of data as usual reports but more knowledge (explanations, related data, etc).

Finally, our assumption that in analytics quantity will grow into quality is not happening, so we will need to find ways how to increase the quality of our analytics in a different ways.