Starting enterprise data journey? Worth taking a look at these five points

Due to exponential data processing technology advancement, every organization wants to utilize its "siloed data" asset that was under utilized until now. It is imperative for all organizations to leverage power of data to remain relevant in the current time. It is a compulsion and not a choice anymore. However, many organizations fail to find a clear "data transformation" strategy and end up wasting huge amounts of time and resources. These are five points everyone needs to be aware of to make the "data journey" successful.

Lack of "right" organization structure supporting data culture

Every organization has a different set of problems to solve so it is extremely important to have the right organizational structure that is tailored based on the organization's needs and challenges. The structure that worked for other organizations may not work for you so trying to replicate a similar structure is not a good way to start with. This is one of the most challenging tasks when any organization starts its data journey. Usually, it is not easy to figure out the right structure at the beginning either. It is recommended to start with a small-scale experimental structure and keep adjusting it before scaling it out for the entire organization.

Everyone in the organization has to adopt a mind-set of data culture, but it doesn’t happen overnight. Creating a cross-cutting data set across the organization is a key for success - Tak Nagumo

Time to democratizing data

One of the common things in failed digital transformation projects was "too long time" to add value to the business. It is extremely important to have a clear short-term goal to start adding business value without spending too many resources at the beginning. It helps in many ways - early feedback to move in the right direction, budget planning, and engaging all the stakeholders without losing sight of the long-term goal.

Get data in front of people and they get excited. But building cool experiments or imposing tools top-down doesn’t cut it. To create a competitive advantage, stimulate demand for data from the grass roots - McKinsey Co

Selecting the right tools and technology

Given that there are so many tools available in the market for enabling the "data journey", it is easy to get distracted by reviews and not doing enough exploration while selecting external tools. If you end up choosing a tool that is not fulfilling your purpose effectively, it is very hard to reverse the decision and could become a major cause of failure. Also, while evaluating tools we often miss to consider the non-functional aspects of it - support, deployment, security, etc which plays important role in overall success.

Talent management framework

Everyone engaged in the digital transformation journey needs to understand the organization's goal clearly. Everybody needs to be proactive to identify gaps and improve upon the processes at each level. It cannot be done by directing someone to do something. It is important to keep motivated and focused to give their best. It takes time to replace existing resources given that the nature of work is not just "technical". You don't want to become a factory to train "data leaders" and let someone take them from you. There has to be a framework in place that helps talent development, and retention considering their career aspiration.

Decision-making and prioritization process

Slow decision-making could kill your business. It is okay to not make the best decision at times but timely decision helps keep things moving. Blackberry was one of the leaders in mobile phone manufacturing 15 years ago but it failed to adapt to changes and its slow decision-making process has affected it so badly and the result is already in front of us.