It is worth exploring the many ways in which data is used on a daily basis to fully appreciate the value that data brings to every organization. Considering the incredible diversity of data use across all business functions reinforces the importance of data. It’s critical to ensure that data is high quality, secure, compliant, and accessible to the right people at the right time.

Data isn’t something that just concerns the data analytics team or the information technology department. It’s also not something that is limited to decision-makers and leaders. 

📌Data matters to everyone.

Operations

Business operation concerns themselves with a diverse set of activities to run the day-to-day needs and drive the mission of an organization. Each business has different needs, and operational functions reflect these specific requirements. Some core functions show up in almost every organization. Consider payroll, order management, and marketing. At the same time, some operational support won’t be required. Not every organization needs its own IT organization, or if it’s a service business, it may not have a warehouse.

The performance of operations is often easily quantified by data. For example, in a human resources (HR) function, they’ll want to know how many openings there are, how long openings are taking to fill, and who is accepting offers. There’s a multitude of data points to quantify the answers to these so that relevant decisions can be made.

Operation use data to make decisions, to enable systems to run, and to deliver data to internal and external entities. For example, a regional sales team will deliver their monthly results to headquarters to be presented to vice presidents or the C-suite.

Many data functions in support operations are automated. For example, a warehouse inventory system may automatically generate a replenishment order when stock drop to a certain level. Consider all the notifications that systems generate based on triggers. Who hasn’t received an email notifying them that they haven’t submitted their time and expense report?

Strategy

Every organization has a strategy, whether it’s articulated overtly or not. At the organization level, this is about creating a plan that supports objectives and goals. It’s essentially about understanding the challenges to delivering on the organization’s purpose and then agreeing on the proposed solutions to those challenges. Strategy can also be adopted at the department and division levels, but the intent is the same: understand the journey ahead and make a plan.

Strategy leads to implementation and requires the support of operations to realize its goals. In this way, strategy and operations are two sides of the same coin. Done right, a data-driven strategy delivered with operational excellence can be a winning ticket.

Creating a strategy typically comes down to a core set of activities. It begins with an analysis of the environment.