Big data and analytics offer a powerful way for businesses to strategise and identify new opportunities for growth. Here's how to build a data-driven culture in your company. It involves using any data at your disposal – from public resources to your own databases – to make educated business decisions. Here's a look at what analytics can offer your business as well as some ways to strive for an analytics-driven culture in the office.
What can analytics offer your business?
Analytics can take many different forms – ranging from collecting survey data from customers to utilising big data and other large data sets to make better business decisions and gain industry insights. Many large multinational enterprises use big data to understand major trends. For example, a realtor can use big data insights to reduce costs and improve agility by identifying the best times of the year to do business in ways that competitors haven't realised. Or a marketer can use data to find out which are the best times to post messages on social media to increase the chances of them being seen.
There are countless businesses that use various analytics tools and services in order to make better decisions, move faster and stay ahead of the competition. Getting your business in this mindset requires you to teach employees to think data-first and realise the value of an analytics-driven culture.
How to teach the value of a data-driven culture
To inculcate an analytics-driven culture in your business, you need to start with expressing the value your business can gain from focusing on data-driven results. An employee may trust their intuition, but it's your responsibility as a business leader to explain why intuition may fail, while data delivers more consistent and effective results.
A great way to start is to work with managers and new hires, as both are open to receiving feedback and learning how they can grow their opportunities and help the business reach its goals. As these employees learn about the benefits of data-driven results, they'll want to gain access to such technology and share their interest with co-workers. In order for an analytics-driven culture to succeed in your business, it must naturally emerge and grow as employees become invested in the methodology. Doing this is far more effective than forcing new methodologies, as that will only alienate employees and reduce their productivity. A gradual, positive engagement with data-driven opportunities is a far better way to encourage employee interest in an analytics-driven culture.
Give your team tools for data success
As you communicate the value of a data-driven culture, it's also important to give your teams the tools they need to make data-driven decisions with the help of analytics tools and services. There are many free and low-cost services available that allow your business to use already available data to make better decisions. For example, Google Analytics allows your business to understand why customers visit your website, where they come from and other personal insights. CRM services such as Salesforce and other cloud-based technologies all offer analytics tools to understand and research data you collect from customers. Conducting surveys is another way to gain data that can be analysed by your employees to discover opportunities. There's always a way to get started, and giving your employees tools they can use to identify trends and develop insights gives your company an edge while furthering efforts to build an analytics-driven culture.
As a business leader, it's important for you to do your part in fostering a data-driven culture among your employees. When you encourage and reward team members who make data-driven decisions, you minimise the risk of your operations, increase the success of new ventures and develop a positive strategy to help grow your business in the years ahead. Remember to manage your data and improve your tools along the way, and your employees will see the value of an analytics-driven culture in their daily work.
