Governing a business through insights gathered from data, rather than by human judgement or intuition, is one of the main misconceptions I encounter daily. Being a data-driven company does not mean ruling out the human factor from the equation. Instead, it is about accurately enabling automated decision making.
Being data driven means providing access to the right data at the right time to employees across the organization. Only then can employees interpret and make informed decisions that positively impact the business and its goals.
The Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2019 in Florida had Gartner Senior Vice President - Research & Advisory, Val Sribar, discuss the importance of discovering the TechQuilibrium of their organizations.
Gartner defines TechQuilibrium as the balance point that a digital business needs to change and execute its plan. It’s not completely about more digitalization, but about finding the right mix of the traditional and the digital for a business – a balance that varies from company to company and from industry to industry.
Val also spoke about how it is getting harder for digital leaders to keep up with the pace of competitor companies implementing more technologies and automating processes. He highlighted this as a compelling reason for organizations to start finding their TechQuilibrium between human decisions and those taken by artificial intelligence.
In my opinion, being data driven is entirely about how human beings and technologies interact to achieve efficiencies.
Gartner also highlighted that all chief information officers (CIOs) should focus on finding their businesses' TechQuilibrium through data-driven decision making, leadership, customer experience and the digital community.
Data-driven companies use, and compile, data in a sensible and meaningful way, allowing them to be more agile and act dynamically. These companies ensure that the data presented is relevant, visually attractive and clear to each employee’s job function and area of responsibility. This data support enables employees to make fact-based decisions and change behavior, where needed, to achieve profitable growth and higher customer satisfaction.
The most accurate, data-rich work environments require a human-machine partnership where machines need to do the heavy-weight lifting work of processing data. Employees, meanwhile, have to interpret these data outcomes and make impactful decisions.
Therefore, data-driven companies must know how and what data they collect and use to manage and further develop their business.
The symposium also had Gartner analyst Rita Sallam observe how getting data is no longer a problem; deciding how to use it responsibly is. Companies must ensure proper information governance and create real value from the collected data so that customers, business partners and stakeholders can share data securely with each other.
Finding the right balance in being data driven is crucial to a company’s decisions having a positive impact and to its digital journey's success.