Business management encompasses the organisation and strategic decisions that make it possible to achieve the objectives set initially. The evolution of the current company’s situation extends towards a data-driven approach, which is focused on valuing data.
Business management: a major challenge at the strategic and operational level
The skills that allow you to manage your business effectively go beyond decision-making and the use of the dashboard that lists important information. Business management also includes the development of a business plan and the optimisation of performance indicators by implementing actions that have real added value. The optimisation of the company’s income statement includes various operations such as:
- strategic decision-making for operational management of prospecting tools and the evolution of turnover;
- verification of the relevance of the actions carried out in real-time to achieve the objectives set and adjust them if necessary;
- continuous improvement by evaluating the effectiveness of the operations carried out.
The importance of data today to better manage the company
By 2025, 175 zettabytes (1012 GB) of data will be present in the world sphere, 30% of which will be processed in real-time, according to IDC.
A 2018 Forbes-linked ad study indicated that 71% of companies worldwide expected their investments in data and analytics to accelerate over the next three years and beyond. We are clearly seeing this trend today.
Indeed, the current situation confronts companies with the increase in competition and customer demands. The optimization of management tools thanks in particular to the use of digital governance via data offers companies the opportunity to exploit the company data in a more elaborate way, by valuing them.
These are carefully analysed and interpreted in order to deliver relevant and useful information to the evolution of the company. The role of the data manager and management is to set up a system that is in line with the organisation’s situation. This process makes it possible to share actionable data to visualize information that reflects the real state of strategic and financial operations, while assessing potential risks.
It is in this context that Business Intelligence (BI) is inscribed. The latter refers to the technologies, applications and practices for collecting, integrating, analysing and presenting information. Effective BI helps companies find answers to questions about their data. It enables them to make more informed decisions by presenting current and historical data in their business context.
It would be wrong to consider data as an additional cost item for the company. On the contrary, it represents a way to create value since it saves time, makes better decisions and faster, but also detects business opportunities.
A study conducted by YouGov and Tableau Software among 500 French decision-makers indicates that for 87% of the decision-makers surveyed, sharing data in a simple and visual way within the company makes it possible to detect business opportunities.
This study also shows that data is perceived as allowing the company to have the best chances to generate growth. It is seen, for example, as the opportunity to highlight the points of improvement of a project (57%), to offer added value to existing services (56%), and to help develop a new product or offer (54%).
What is a data-driven company?
A so-called “data-driven” company is a company that is driven by data. In other words, it is a company that uses the data analysis technologies at its disposal to guide its operation. The objective of the “data-driven” culture is to strive for better operational performance through the use of collected data. The results are visible at all organisational levels: financial, marketing, communication and collaboration.
5 benefits of becoming a data-driven company
Here is an overview of the 5 main advantages of establishing a data-driven culture within your company:
1. Have a single language and a common repository
Thanks to data governance and the data-driven approach, the company will have a single language that will unify the different teams.
Indeed, it is not uncommon, within companies, for different terms to be used by marketing or purchases when they refer to the same thing. This difference in language between teams leads to considerable time waste, especially during meetings.
One of the major challenges in a data project is precisely to bring together the various actors around a common language and reference system to save time and efficiency because the employees involved in the project master the “data vocabulary” of the company and this common language makes it possible to have higher quality exchanges within the company and thus to gain in efficiency and relevance.
2. Visualise the entire organization of the company
Performance indicators provide an overall picture of the health of the company. The analysis of the collected data listed in a dashboard offers a global view of the company’s organization. The data process makes it possible to refer to the indicators to adjust the data almost in real-time, according to the company’s needs.
Thanks to the daily management of data, questions and appropriate decisions can be made, in order to improve the situation of society and find the right balance.
3. Improve operator responsiveness for fast and efficient decision-making
Thanks to the constantly adjusted reporting tools and dashboards, the performance indicators are clearly visible. The “data-driven” company has the advantage of benefiting from data collected, analyzed and exploited in almost real-time. The immediate availability of effective data on the current situation of the company makes it possible to make adequate, fast and accurate decisions.
For example, a management controller who spends 1 or 2 weeks building his pivot table (TCD) on Excel will be able, thanks to data and more particularly to BI, to have his TCD ready and usable every morning with up-to-date data, a considerable time saving on his working time.
4. Increase performance and response capabilities in the event of malfunctions
Data management offers management of the monitoring of the performance indicators of the services set up in the company. This process improves the performance of the business activity. In the event that the objectives set are not achieved, management can react quickly. The company that embarks on data management has the possibility to evaluate the impact of evolutions. This data management makes it possible to optimize performance and reduce costs.
5. Visualize future prospects
The evolution of market needs, the development of data and artificial intelligence require an increase in the company’s performance. In order to quickly detect new market trends and determine consumer needs, the “data-driven” process is an ideal solution because it allows the company to anticipate future needs and quickly challenge the competition through predictive analysis.
In summary, the company that aims for efficient management must use the best management tools. Thanks to business intelligence solutions and the integration of the “data driven” system, corporate governance can aim for long-term operational excellence.
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