A data-driven culture is one that uses data everyday in every department, team, or unit to make decisions. This is not just for the “business” or operations side, it is also for tech. In data-driven cultures, there is governance around data, there’s knowledge and awareness of what data exists and how to use it. There are training sessions to the point that even on-boarding has data training.

But, is this reality? Are organizations that call themselves data-driven actually doing these things? Is this such a blue sky idea that is never seen in the real world?

Things will never be 100% accurate or ideal. That’s the truth about it. But, what we can conclude is that companies that have a data-driven culture grow and succeed.

Why is it important to talk about data cultures?

Well, let’s look at some data about data in organizations. Research done by EY in 2015, which surveyed a variety of companies showed that only 31% of companies are doing any data projects to help fix their data infrastructure/governance/analytics issues. That was in 2015, surely there’s been an improvement in the last 4 years? New Vantage Partners in 2018 surveyed C-level executives across a variety of companies and what they found was that there are 31% of organizations that either claim to be data driven or are doing anything about their data. There are even more studies concluding the same thing: companies know that data is their lifeblood but yet are not doing anything about it.

This can be striking for most, but for those that have been in data and trying to push the data projects or be the champions for it, know first hand that this is absolutely true, but why does it happen? If data is what takes an organization to the next step, why aren’t companies chomping at the bit to get started on these projects. The truth is, that these projects are complicated. To bring more context, let's look at how these projects usually unfold.

Any data project is a looming big IT project that no one wants to tackle and a few brave souls see the potential growth of implementing that project. Sometimes these projects come because of regulatory rules, industry specific standards, and so forth. Even those projects are tough and difficult to accomplish due to either the complexity of the problem or the number of people involved in decision making.

What are some of the reasons that organizations struggle with fixing their data issues or addressing their data needs?

For starters, ROI! In order to make any big investment, especially around data projects (infrastructure, people, tools), there’s always the question of what is my return on investment. Is this just going to be sunk costs that I will never receive back? I’m going to spend $100k on this BI tool, why? How is this going to help drive more business? Engineering is asking to hire 5 data engineers. The question becomes what are they going to do? Sometimes, it is simple: there are a ton of manual processes that are being done and automating it will give back hours of work to teams that are already overworked and burned out. It could also mean, opportunities to cut costs on teams that only existed just for the manual processes. We all know there’s inefficiencies in our companies. So sometimes, it’s as simple as laying that information out.

But, most of the time, it is not simple.

There’s a misconception here that any data project has to be an “IT” project. I don’t agree with that. If data needs to be or is the lifeblood of an organization, then ownership doesn’t just stay with one team or group or department. It is shared, it's a journey the organization takes together to move to be data-driven.

Do you want to know how to make an organization “data-driven”, make it collaborative project. Have a vision for what data looks like at your company. That vision doesn’t start from that one soul that way down in the trenches that has no push or pull in the organization. That starts at the top.

Do you know why companies do not have successful data projects: because there is no support from the senior leadership. They are the key to success. Those at the top set the culture and pace for an organization. If they don’t care about data, nothing will ever move. If there’s no “buy-in” from the business side, do you think that people in the business side of the organization will want to accept/adopt/use the tools you create? Maybe, there are always some ( who I call data champions) that see the benefits: they want to be able to pull their own data without waiting 3 days from analytics. They want to make business decisions based on data and not just on gut or wherever the wind is blowing that day.

A data-driven organization can be seen in companies like Netflix where they breathe and eat data all day. It is how that company personalizes content for their subscribers, how they test features, how they understand what shows to create in their own studio. That is the power of harnessing your data and putting it to use.

So if you’re in an organization that is struggling to wrangle their data, struggling to get support from anyone to bring in a BI tool or create a data warehouse, or in a place where there is no governance and it’s wild wild west of data, I leave you with a few words of advice.

If you are someone in a leadership role (you don't have to be the CEO), start by asking the question: what is our data vision? Have a meeting of the minds and brainstorm it. Don’t go at it alone, remember success for this is about collaboration, about your company’s data journey. If you are not in a leadership role, but you have a passion for data and see that there could be potential in your organization, reach out to leaders that believe the same as you in that regard. Bring up your idea to your leader and ask “what is our data vision”?

Start the conversation, regardless of where you are in the organization. It has to start somewhere. Help your organization have a data driven culture. Share your passion about data.



Resources

EY, Becoming an Analytics-Driven Organization https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/EY-global-becoming-an-analytics-driven-organization/%24FILE/ey-global-becoming-an-analytics-driven-organization.pdf

New Vantage Partners

http://newvantage.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Big-Data-Executive-Survey-2019-Findings-Updated-010219-1.pdf

Why data cultures matter

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/why-data-culture-matters

A culture of analytics, why amazon and netflix succeed while others fail

https://www.tibco.com/blog/2018/06/27/a-culture-of-analytics-why-amazon-netflix-succeed-while-others-fail/



