Dive Brief:

• Businesses that rely on data management tools to make decisions are 58% more likely to beat their revenue goals than non-data driven companies, according to a Forrester Consulting survey of 900 global business leaders commissioned by Collibra. Data savvy businesses are 162% more likely to have significantly surpassed their revenue goals when compared to their "laggard" counterparts.
• Companies leveraging data see an 8% boost in customer trust and a 173% advantage in efficiently complying with regulations compared to non-data driven companies. By contrast, less data-mature organizations are 55% less likely to say internal data management strategies lead to optimal business decisions.
• Almost two-thirds of companies plan to increase their investment in data management technology over the next two years, but currently 43% of organizations aren't using data to guide every business decision.

Dive Insight:

For the past few months, businesses have been making quick decisions in fresh territory. Many choices were aimed at sustaining operations through an economic contraction, or complying with stay-at-home orders.

Now, as the economic effects of the pandemic become more clear, leaders are tasked with setting up a mid- to long-term strategy that carries them past the crisis. Analytics can play a role in shaping a post-COVID game plan.  

The current business landscape provides leaders with an opportunity to evaluate their business models and their approach to digital transformation, according to Felix Van de Maele, CEO and co-founder of Collibra. 

"This pandemic has started to change the way people want and need to do business, and companies need to be prepared and start thinking about how they potentially shift," Van de Maele told CIO Dive in an email. 

Adhering to a data strategy at the enterprise level brings along the risk of having siloed, unused data drain resources and fail to deliver on its intended purpose. In data lake deployments, providing key leaders with direct access to data can increase the likelihood of success. 

"An organization's internal data culture can make or break a data program's success," said Van de Maele. "We are seeing that organizations that prioritize building a strong data culture, such as with data literacy and data awareness initiatives, are in a better position to drive adoption long term."