q111/random_k4/random_4.md

Becoming a
data-driven
organization

The what, why and how

Ongoing digitization is turning everything into data, forcing

Technological advancements in data analytics are, however,

companies to become more data-driven. While the benefits of

making it possible for any type of company in every industry to

the data-driven organisation are clear (improved performance,

become data-driven.

more profitability, stronger innovations), there are still some

Discover the basic do’s and don’ts in ‘Becoming a data-driven

technical and business challenges to overcome.

organisation: the what, why and how’.

Table of contents

1

Why become
data-driven?

You may not have noticed, but everything around us has

turned into data. Not just our cars or mobile phones, a

growing number of other appliances, machines and ‘things’

are generating a constant flux of data. Where we are and

what we do is used for marketing purposes. Sensors in

machines tell companies how to improve their output.

This flood of data is transforming our world. Companies that

want to stay ahead must become data-driven.

The rise of the data-driven organisation

Many organisations worry about staying competitive in the midst of Big
Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning or the Internet of Things
(IoT). Especially as many of these concepts are already generating value
for many companies. The glue that binds all of these together is data.

What is being data-driven all about?

Data-driven organisations process and use ever more data

As consultancy firm McKinsey says:

to improve and speed up their decision-making. The goal of

having superior analytics is having superior insights. In data-

driven organisations, decisions that aren’t supported by data,

are considered suspicious. Smarter analytics technologies

now enable every company to become more data-driven.

“Businesses no longer have to go on gut instinct;
they can use data and analytics to make faster
decisions and more accurate forecasts supported
by a mountain of evidence.”

Becoming a data-driven organization

4

Data-driven organisations
use analytics to become smarter:

1

They perform
better

The data shows where
they can streamline
their processes.

3

They are more
profitable

Constant improvements
and better predictions
help to outsmart the
competition and
improve innovation.

2

They are
operationally
 more predictable

Data insights fuel
current and future
decision-making.

These advantages make an organisation more shock-resistant and less
likely to be surprised by the next economy - or technology disruption.

Gut feeling no longer makes the difference

Gut feeling is not good enough anymore to differentiate yourself from
your competitors. To be truly competitive, you will need data. Lots of
relevant data. Luckily, any organisation can set out on the journey to
become data-driven. You no longer need to be a data scientist to work
with data. Citizen Data Scientists are not your professional statistician or
trained analyst, nor your maths wizard or computer scientist, but rather
regular business users who create and use advanced analytical models.

Citizen Data Scientists are part of the ongoing wave of democratization
of analytics in every department. These business people have the right
attitude – curious, adventurous, determined – to research and improve
things in your organisation. They want to get their hands on the data
themselves and find new ways to get answers. They’re willing to learn
new methods and use new tools. They often think, “I don’t want to ask a
statistician. I want to try it myself.”

Becoming a data-driven organization

5

2,500 PB

Every day, the world creates 2,500
petabytes of data. In the past two years,
mankind has generated more data than
in the preceding 5,000 years combined.

Source: IFL Science

 ZOOM-IN ON
SWISSCOM

SWITZERLAND | TELECOM | CUSTOMER SERVICE

7 x FASTER

CUSTOMER SERVICE DATA IS NOW PROCESSED 7X FASTER
MAKING IT FAR MORE USEFUL IN ISSUE SOLVING.

Swisscom, Switzerland’s biggest telecom operator, found that the analysis
of their customer service data was too slow and required too much
manual work. As such, it did not really help to improve customer service.
Through smarter text analytics, however, relationships and possible
solutions were shown much faster, often almost simultaneously as the
ongoing call center documentation evolved. Reports are now sent daily
instead of weekly or even monthly.

“We are able to create fully automated daily reports, which
has a direct positive effect on service quality and customer
satisfaction.”

Albert Labermeier
Senior Marketing Analyst at Swisscom

Becoming a data-driven organization

6

2

The road to
becoming
data-driven

While the benefits of becoming more data-driven are

apparent, in our experience, many companies are still faced

with a few bumps in the road. Luckily, technical advances are

bringing data analytics within reach of a growing number of

organisations.

Changing mindsets

On the road to becoming data-driven, it’s crucial for people to change
their mindset and organisations to change their processes. Doing so, will
help overcome some of these hurdles:

1

2

3

4

UNSTRUCTURED DATA

UNCONNECTED SYSTEMS

LOW DATA QUALITY OR
UNAVAILABLE DATA

MISALIGNMENT WITH IT

Data that is not predefined or does

Organisations often use multiple

Sometimes, the data quality simply

Business units shouldn’t have to

not fit the mould of traditional

information storage systems side by

isn’t good enough, because of poor

depend on IT for data analytics, they

data models. This includes text

side with no or difficult connections

data input or poorly implemented

should be able to run it themselves.

documents, pictures, e-mails, sensor

between them. These systems may

data connections. It is hard to get

With IT being under constant

data, and much more. This data

even offer conflicting information

good business intelligence from

pressure to keep delivering more

is hard to analyse for traditional

because they use different sources,

poor – or plain wrong – data.

at lower costs, your data analytics

analytics programs, although it

processing methods or naming

contains valuable information.

conventions.

requests may end up at the bottom

of their list.

But all of these challenges can be overcome by defining
a roadmap towards better data analytics.

Becoming a data-driven organization

8

 ZOOM-IN ON
ASTRAZENECA

SWEDEN | HEALTHCARE | MANUFACTURING

VARIATIONS IN THE PRODUCTION PROCESS HAVE BEEN MINIMIZED.

THE CONTENT OF THE ANALYSES HAS BEEN GREATLY EXPANDED.

PRODUCTION CYCLES HAVE BECOME LEANER.

AstraZeneca,  a  global  pharmaceutical  company,  wanted  to  make  the
production process for its inhalers more cost-effective and qualitative by
better using the production data. Not an easy task, given the system’s 1,700
parameters and a total data growth of 1.5 million rows per week.

With the proper analytics system in place, automated data management
for each production batch has become possible, thus allowing for quick
analysis  throughout  the  manufacturing  process.  Between  50  and  100
employees – as diverse as engineers, operators and managers – now create
or  receive  reports  from  the  system  while  knowledge  sharing  is  greatly
facilitated.

“Due to the success of the program, several other products
from the same family which are produced in AstraZeneca’s
Swedish  operations  have  now  been  included  under  the
system.  We  plan  to  use  the  same  system  for  completely
different product groups as well.”

Henrik Åkerblom
Process Engineer at AstraZeneca

80%

Analysts at Gartner
estimate that 80% of all
enterprise data today is
unstructured

Source: Gartner

45%

According to an IDG
survey, 45% of business
leaders cite ‛unstructured
data’ as their single
biggest hurdle to
overcome in analytics.

Source: IDG

Becoming a data-driven organization

9

3

The three
foundations of
better analytics

Technological improvements within analytics platforms

enable more companies to become data-driven, as it

enables organisations to manage their data better, run more

complex analyses and visualize the outcome in a more

understandable manner. Getting the technical foundations

right puts you well on your way.

Laying the foundation

There are three foundations to becoming data-driven.

1

2

3

DATA MANAGEMENT

This is the data you use as input. A good analytics platform can process any combination of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data. Automated

connections between your analytics platform and other systems ensure that the most recent data is always available and used. While not every data point will

be crystal clear from the start, technical advances in Machine Learning and the like already automate data management, for the most part. Similarly, data inputs

and data comparisons can be automated, neatly breaking down the obstacle of handling semi- and unstructured data. By applying the right governance

structure, privacy rules can be applied to personally identifiable information.

ANALYTICS

Pouring over endless rows of figures and numbers is the heavy lifting of data science. By leaving this task to specialized software, you leave less room for

human error and create more room to actually start using the results of your analysis. Complex calculations can now be run by a click of a button, making it

available to any regular business user.

DATA VISUALIZATION

The end result of your analytical work should be smarter insights. By visualizing this in different types of graphics and charts, the outcomes become easily

understandable for everyone at a glance, while reports and dashboards can quickly be set up, thus opening up the insights to a growing number of people

across the whole organisation.

Becoming a data-driven organization

11

74%

According to a Forrester
study, 74% of all companies
would like to be more data-
driven, but only 29% claim
that they are actually good
at putting this idea into
action.

Source: Forrester

The power of analytics that everyone can use

These three solid foundations enable you to build an analytics platform
that works for everyone. This has major benefits that help eliminate the
obstacles on your data-driven journey.

 You get clear, actionable results, even from imperfect or
unstructured data. Cleaning up your data and perfecting your input
models can come later.

 Your intelligence is easy to view and understand with visuals that
are more captivating than any line of text could ever be.

 Because the platform is easy to use, self-service reduces reliance on
IT. In turn, IT can focus more on its core business.

1

2

3

 ZOOM-IN ON
RABOBANK

THE NETHERLANDS | BANKING | OPERATIONS

TRANSPARENCY THROUGHOUT THE ORGANISATION HAS
INCREASED. DATA VISUALIZATION ENABLES THE BANK TO PROVIDE
PERTINENT INFORMATION AND DIRECT CHAIN MANAGERS MORE
EFFECTIVELY.

The Rabobank Group, a leading global financial services provider serving
more than 10 million customers and headquartered in the Netherlands,
wanted to optimize its operations by improving the financial and
collaborative alignment across its chains. The company discovered that
there was a huge amount of data available from all groups of the bank’s
organisational chain such as departments, business units and local
branches, but there wasn’t one single system that could integrate and
structure all the information efficiently and provide the ability to share
results.

With data visualization, large amounts of data are presented visually. The
diverse pictorial or graphical options lead to new questions that weren’t
asked before. The bank is now much more flexible in its ability to provide
information and it can direct chain managers more effectively. At the
same time, employees have become more engaged because they can
quickly see the results of what they do.

“With  the  knowledge  and  access  to  all  chain  information,
we are able to let go of old business models and replace
them with more dynamic ones.”

John Lambrechts
Manager Concern Control at Rabobank

Becoming a data-driven organization

12

4

The
data-driven
journey

So where do you start your data-driven journey? Anywhere is

good, as long as it isn’t everywhere. A ‘big bang’ approach is

risky: it can overcomplicate things or may simply lack focus.

We recommend a step-by-step approach as the surest way

forward to success.

Plotting the course

1

2

3

Choose your starting point

The most important datasets have priority

Expand the reach of the platform

This can be a team (e.g. the marketing
department) or a specific data source. Consider
collecting data from your CRM system to get a
better insight into customer behavior, or begin
with productivity data from the shop-floor.

Recorded customer service calls or data from your
finance department could equally be your first
project. It is best if your starting-point is something
you’re already familiar with, and if you have a clear
goal in mind.

You must make a distinction between must-have
datasets that will work towards your goal and nice-
to-have datasets that are only loosely related.

Data may be a mix of structured, semi-structured
and unstructured data. Pour it all in and look at
what your analytics platform comes up with and
whether the results are actionable. Consider if
additional data management (e.g. data cleaning)
is needed or whether you can already continue
using the current datasets.

Once you have value-added results, you can start
expanding the reach of the platform within and
across teams. This can happen in a series of waves
that create more and more buy-in as the results
begin to show more and more benefits.

Becoming a data-driven organization

14

Start

expand
within the team

Scale

Grow

expand
beyond the team

get the entire
organization on-board

4

The data-driven organisation is born

Once you have moved from a limited number of data sources to an all-
encompassing data management flow; you’ve extended the reach of
data analytics from the few to the many and every key decision is backed
by data, you’ve truly become a data-driven organisation. You‘ll find that,
as you become better at analytics, you’ll move from hindsight to insight

to foresight. You’ll no longer simply look back at ‘what happened’, but
you’ll steer your gaze to the future. Not only can you track ROI on all
data-enabled projects, you can also run predictive analytics and simulate
‘what-if’ scenarios. The backbone of your business strategy is now
formed by undisputable facts.

Becoming a data-driven organization

15

 ZOOM-IN ON
Eni

BELGIUM | ENERGY | MARKETING & OPERATIONS

a
360°
view

on your
customers

   ‛What-if’ scenarios, allowing them to assess the impact of strategic
decisions, such as changes in price or margin, reduced customer
churn and more.

   User-friendly dashboards that help to keep an eye on the long-term
profitability of the entire customer base.

“We  calculate  how  much  the  customer  will  spend  with  us
(revenues) and how long they will stay (retention). We also
predict when we might experience payment issues (credit
losses) with them and how much it will cost us to serve their
needs (service costs).”

Zdravka Jevtimov
Customer Insights Manager at Eni

CUSTOMER CHURN AND RETENTION CAN NOW BE PREDICTED.

FUTURE PROFITABILITY OF PRODUCTS, CHANNELS AND
SEGMENTS CAN BE BETTER EVALUATED UP FRONT.

Eni is an integrated energy company with operations on five continents.
In the highly competitive energy market, it’s crucial to build long-term
relationships with clients. That’s why the company continuously monitors
and analyses the behaviour of its entire client base throughout the
complete customer life cycle.

The company developed a solid and trustworthy prediction model using
more than 700 parameters offering Eni’s management:

  Valuable information about customers

   Help in evaluating the future profitability of the company’s product
portfolio, sales channels and customer segments

60%

56%

Analyst firm Gartner estimates that

According to CMO.com, best-in-

over half of Big Data projects at

class marketeers are 56% more likely

companies fail. One big reason for

to use data and analytics platforms.

this is that companies often want

However, only 19% of marketers fully

to do everything at once instead of

track all their marketing efforts with

focusing on smaller projects with a

data.

clear end goal or a quick win.

Source: CMO.com

Source: Gartner

Becoming a data-driven organization

16

5

The next level
in data-driven
work

Being data-driven is not an end-state. It’s the beginning of an exploration of exciting possibilities. As the pace of technology

innovation keeps accelerating, yesterday’s science fiction becomes today’s reality. Here are some of the elements that will fuel

the data-driven organisation of the future.

On the edge of Tomorrow

Edge analytics

Transparency

Security

IoT

AI

Supply chain

Real-time on site analytics

Why not be transparent with

Analytics can be put to work

With the wealth of data

Artificial intelligence (AI)

Experts can use Big Data to

can track consumers’ in-store

consumers about the huge

for data protection as well.

generated by machines, your

makes it possible for

further optimize logistics.

behavior and pair it with the

amounts of data that are

With advanced pattern

production lines could map

machines to learn from

By taking into account

right kind of offer bundles to

collected? Some information

recognition and correlating

out ways to become even

experience, adjust to new

circumstantial factors that

attract attention and capture

will always remain sensitive,

the needs of the individual.

but offering transparency

This effectively creates the

to your customers can be

segment of one.

a big win in the branding

department. According to

recent surveys, over 80%
of consumers say ethics
matter when they buy. With
the General Data Protection

Regulation (GDPR), adhering
to privacy rules has become
an absolute must.

behaviours, risks can be
assessed better and cyber
attacks or real-life security
threats can be prevented
before they even occur.

more productive, discover

inputs and perform human-

influence delivery speed and

hidden costs and unlikely

like tasks. AI relies heavily on

reliability (e.g. traffic flows,

sources of revenue. The

deep learning and natural

accidents, weather patterns,

Internet of Things (IoT) will
revolutionize production
as well as consumption

language processing.
Computers are ‘trained’ to

rain storms), smarter logistics

could even be used to

accomplish specific tasks by

operate more sustainably.

patterns. And it’s just around

processing large amounts

the corner.

of data and recognizing

patterns in that data.

Becoming a data-driven organization

18

   ZOOM-IN ON
INTERAMERICAN

GREECE | INSURANCE | COMPLIANCE

BE FULLY GDPR-COMPLIANT.
MAKE A BIG STEP TOWARDS BECOMING A DIGITAL-ONLY INSURER.

For INTERAMERICAN, a leading insurance provider in Greece, trust
is crucial to retaining loyal customers. The company adopted a data
analytics platform to be fully compliant with the EU General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) while also supporting the company’s
strategic focus of transforming itself into a digital-only insurer.

Its data governance initiative improves the availability, completeness and
accuracy of the information and data being managed. Topics covered
are data ownership, data location, data access, data provenance, risk
assessments and proper recovery procedures in case of breaches. All vital
elements in helping give customers peace of mind that their personal
data will be safe.

“Our organisation is working to transition to the new digital
age and create long-term, trust-based relationships with our
customers. SAS for Data Protection helps us work towards
compliance  with  the  requirements  of  the  new  regulation
and foster customer trust.”

Xenophon Liapakis
CIO at INTERAMERICAN

41%

According to a CFI Group
survey, 41% of all consumers
use mobile apps while
shopping. For Millennials, this
figure even rises to 67%. 51%
of those polled said they would
be likely to use apps if they
made the shopping experience
easier and faster.

Source: CFI Group

Over half of organisations
surveyed by IDG say that
they are already deploying
analytics to detect cyber
attacks, denial-of-service
attacks and phishing.
However, 59% among them
still said they have been
compromised at least once
per month “because they
were not able to keep up
and fully analyse the data.”

Source: IDG

According to Accenture
research, using Big Data
analytics had a net positive
impact on customer service
and demand fulfilment
for nearly half of all supply
chain experts polled.
Other advantages listed
included greater supply
chain integration (36%),
productivity improvements
(33%) and improved cost to
serve (28%).

Source: Accenture

46%

53%

Becoming a data-driven organization

19

6

Getting in
on the action

Becoming a data-driven organisation is now within reach
of every company. Cloud solutions have made access to
data analytics platforms much easier: software-as-a-service
(SaaS) enables organisations to no longer build and
maintain everything on premise but rent this for as long as
needed. And with Results-as-a-Service (RaaS), it becomes
even possible to completely ‘outsource’ your analytics.
If  you  do  not  have  tools  and  expertise  to  turn  data  into
insights, you can still get results.
Your  organization  provides  the  data  and  the  business
problem  to  be  solved,  and  RaaS  delivers  results  you  can
act on.

By  starting  your  data-driven  journey  in  one  specific  area
of your company, clearly defining your path towards data
analytics,  adopting  the  right  mindset  and  technologies,
and gradually extending the reach and impact throughout
your company, you too can become the type of data-driven
company that is ready for tomorrow’s challenges.
Start your data-driven journey now and, in no time, you’ll
find  yourself  wondering:  ‘How  on  earth  did  we  run  our
business without analytics?’

Becoming a data-driven organization

21

Learn more about the what, why and how of
becoming a data-driven organisation

Read more

Follow us:

For more information, contact us

SOURCES

https://www.cio.com/article/3204131/analytics/intelligent-analytics-fuels-faster-smarter-decision-making.html

http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3130017

https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/news/report-says-most-millennials-are-using-mobile-retail-apps/?utm_source=NetWorld%20Alliance&utm_

medium=email&utm_campaign=EMNARCE07022014

http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/stakeholder_trends_insights/sustainable_brands/study_81_consumers_say_they_will_make_

http://www.cmo.com/features/articles/2016/5/31/15-mind-blowing-stats-about-data-driven-marketing.html#gs.uH3Iceg

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3139923/security/how-big-data-is-improving-cyber-security.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2015/07/13/ten-ways-big-data-is-revolutionizing-supply-chain-management/#53f4e2769f59

https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/94678726-the-need-for-speed-why-customer-service-needs-to-be-faster-than-ever

https://reprints.forrester.com/#/assets/2/202/’RES127061’/reports

https://www.sas.com/nl_nl/training/citizen-data-scientist.html

https://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/articles/analytics/how-to-find-and-equip-citizen-data-scientists.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/06/05/the-big-unstructured-data-problem/#28e176dd493a

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Becoming a data-driven organization

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