Why Your Business Should Transform from Being Data Reactive to Achieving Data Excellence

By Sofia Alcala Paterna , Managing Director - Data Excellence, Intuita

In the modern business landscape, data isn't just an asset; it's the lifeblood that powers innovation, strategy, and above all, competitiveness. Many companies, however, remain 'Data Reactive', treating data as an afterthought rather than a strategic asset.

The goal for organisations should be to achieve 'Data Excellence', a state characterised by high levels of data maturity, literacy, capabilities and governance. Excellence in this context implies creating a sustainable and proactive culture of data through disciplines, principles, behaviours, and standards adapted and tailored to the ambition of your organisation. There is not a one size fits all when we talk about data excellence.? Here’s why you need to make that transformation:?

Data Strategy?

From Reactive to Excellence: A reactive data strategy involves collecting data first and asking questions later, leading to storage silos and poor usability. Achieving data excellence demands a comprehensive strategy that aligns with your business goals and incorporates data collection, processing, analysis and governance from the get-go.?

A reactive data strategy does not consider how data is integrated through your business processes, leading to unclear mastery and the wrong data and data values being used in your critical processes.???

Why It’s Vital: A sound data strategy acts as a roadmap, guiding your organisation towards data-driven decision-making, operational efficiency and innovation. It puts your business miles ahead of competitors who are still stuck in a reactive approach.?

Data Management?

From Reactive to Excellence: Reactive data management means dealing with data as and when issues arise, usually dedicating many people and hours to resolve incidents that could jeopardise your business, subsequently leading to poor service and attrition.? In contrast, data excellence involves a well-defined data management framework that standardises data values, business logic, data ingestion, storage and processing workflows.?

Why It’s Vital: Effective data management ensures data reliability and accessibility, enabling seamless operations and analytics. It is the backbone of your data ecosystem.?

Data Quality?

From Reactive to Excellence: If you're merely reactive, you'll end up spending time fixing data quality after the fact. Data excellence means proactively ensuring that data is consistent, accurate and timely from the point of entry and as it moves through your ecosystem.??

Why It’s Vital: High data quality is crucial for healthy business processes and gaining actionable insights. Poor quality data leads to faulty conclusions, misguided strategies, and ultimately, business risks.?

Data Governance?

From Reactive to Excellence: Reactive governance is about meeting minimum (or in some instances having a complete lack of) compliance standards. Excellence in data governance means actively managing data policies around data management, security and privacy. It involves having a Data Risk that covers all aspects of data - not just protection and security, but management also, ensuring not only compliance but?adding business value.?

Why It’s Vital: Strong data governance enhances and empowers data citizens across the entire organisation, ensuring effective decision making with the right levels of control. It ensures data security and user trust, while also ensuring ethical and effective data utilisation.?

Analytics and Decisioning?

From Reactive to Excellence: Reactive analytics is sporadic and often focused on immediate problems. A state of data excellence integrates analytics into daily decision-making processes, leveraging real-time insights to drive long-term strategy.?

Why It’s Vital: Embedding analytics into the decision-making process fosters a culture of data-driven strategy that is agile, informed, and competitive.?

Business processes, Tooling and Skills?

From Reactive to Excellence: Reactively, companies might adopt tools as needs arise without a cohesive plan, ultimately leading to a fragmented tech stack. Data excellence requires the assessment of business capabilities, enabling the selection of appropriate tools, the cultivation of skills and the right operating model to use them effectively.?

Why It’s Vital: The right tools and skills not only make data management and analytics more effective but also empower employees to become data-literate, contributing to an overall culture of data excellence.?

Conclusion?

Transitioning from a data reactive to a data excellent state isn't just a nice-to-have; it's essential for sustained competitiveness and growth in today’s data-centric world. By focusing on strategy, management, quality, governance, analytics, and the right toolset, your company can make this critical transformation and set itself on a course for long-term success.?

About Sofia Alcala-Paterna

Sofia is a seasoned Data and Analytics Leader with an unyielding passion for unlocking the data potential within organizations to address their most complex business challenges. Boasting over 22 years of experience, she has been instrumental in designing and executing intricate data solutions across various sectors - be it media, telecommunications, or finance, and most recently leading the Data Excellence team Intuita in her position as Managing Director of Data Excellence.

If you'd like to organise some time with Sofia Alcala Paterna to discuss Data Excellence in your organisation, click here.