How to Build a Winning Data-Driven Strategy

The amount of data generated by companies and people grows every day, but few organizations make use of these assets effectively with a data-driven strategy.

In an increasingly agile and competitive market, companies need to develop a data-driven culture to achieve success and analytical advantage.

But how do you get started?

We've put together 5 tips on how to build a winning data-driven strategy in your company.

And the best part: these tips were shared by Ricardo Hoerde, CEO of Diálogo Logística and Hudson Oliveira, head of business and digital performance at Essential Nutrition, professionals who are experiencing the Data Driven Journey in practice.

Let's get to the tips!

Tip 1 - Patience is the key to business

The unpredictability of data is one of the great challenges of implementing a data-driven culture.

Therefore, being persistent and having the resilience to deal with the inconstancies of the process is essential for a company that wants to move towards success.

But, despite the difficulties, Ricardo Hoerde confirms that all this effort is worth a lot:

"It takes time because it makes mistakes. A lot of times you compare it to your Excel and it doesn't match. But once it starts hitting, it changes your life with the quick information that comes to you."

In addition, the emergence of new technologies can also be a hindrance. It is necessary to be prepared to constantly adapt to new technologies, as Hudson Oliveira points out:

"Technology evolves and it changes all the time. Today, you make a BI solution and two years from now it won't work anymore. It's just like iPhone... it's going to change constantly."

Therefore, patience to adapt to new trends and technologies is key. A good solution to deal with this, without so many exorbitant expenses, is to invest in the implementation of a modern approach to analytics.

Tip 2 – Skipping steps hinders more than it helps

A single company may have different stages of analytics maturity.

For example, a department store may have an advanced marketing department, which uses metrics to predict products that consumers will like, while its finance department still relies on Excel spreadsheets to record and analyze its information.

Hudson Oliveira explains that Essential Nutrition also has different areas at different analytical moments. But he warns that "you have to be careful about skipping any step in the Data Driven Journey. If you skip too many steps, you lose the ability or possibility to empower people, organize processes, and structure data in a better way."

In addition, respecting the stages of the journey brings results, such as:

• ease of adaptation of the company to the new data-driven culture;
• cost reduction by ending unnecessary expenses;
• consolidation of more analytical practices and habits;
• Projects implemented with much more ease and agility.

Tip 3 - Commitment makes all the difference

Turning data into a business asset requires the sponsorship of top management and leaders committed to developing an analytical culture.

Ricardo Hoerde is an example of this. However, when he decided to start implementing a business intelligence system at Diálogo, a logistics company with 220 employees, he also encountered numerous challenges:

"It's not an easy road. You have to have a lot of discipline. It's important that the founding partners want it. You have to want it, disseminate it and insist on it. You have to have a lot of patience."

Regardless, Ricardo was able to create an analytical routine in the company, and today, all of Diálogo's meetings and strategic decisions are data-driven.

To make it better, more than 95% of employees already use their BI routinely.

This case portrays how conscious leadership makes a difference in a company's digital transformation.

Tip 4 - Organizational culture and the analytical mindset go hand in hand

Many data initiatives fail. Do you know why?

Organizations often have an established culture in place before data-driven comes along. There is a modus operandi in decision-making, in making processes and in analyzing results.

Therefore, just like any change, the beginning of the Data Driven Journey can cause some discomfort and difficulties at the organizational level.

As Hudson puts it:

"When you have data showing you the way or showing you a diagnosis, you have disruptions to deal with people. And what has always been thought of as a truth turns out to be an untruth."

Considering this, people need to be willing to break paradigms, modify their mindset, and transform the way they look at and analyze their data.

But that's not always the case...

In general, people are already accustomed to traditional processes and, therefore, have some resistance to changing their way of thinking and acting.

How to transform this?

A successful data-driven culture requires an engaged team. But before embracing this cause, people need to understand its purpose in order to effectively participate in this change.

Therefore, the first step is to educate them through training and qualifications. With this, there will be less reluctance and much more adherence to the movement.

Diálogo Logística invests in training its employees for the data-driven culture and already feels the positive results of this, as Ricardo Hoerde says:

"When a team starts to identify that they start to have less time preparing the data and more time analyzing the data, faster making decisions and, after they make the decision, they start to see the results, that's spectacular!"

He also points out that, although there is some resistance, when data initiatives start to bring results, other areas of the business become aware of their importance.

In other words, when all departmental levels become aware of the power of data, data culture is naturally established by the organization.

#Dica 5 - Teamwork is key

A company doesn't reach analytics maturity alone.

The data transformation process is fraught with challenges. Therefore, partnerships and teamwork are also key to your success.

Indicium, for example, has the function not only of showing the best practice for working with data, but also of helping a company to see its own mistakes.

According to Hudson Oliveira:

"The figure of a partner, such as Indicium, is super important to catechize, to pass on knowledge that catechizes and helps people to have the discipline to understand and learn how to work with data, because it is not easy."

In the case of Diálogo Logística, Ricardo Hoerde says that the successful results of the company's Data Driven Journey would not be possible "if it weren't for this partnership that we were able to install with Indicium."

A partnership like this is really crucial in the process of those who are accelerating their Data Driven Journey. And we feel great satisfaction helping these and other companies in this purpose.

Do you feel like you need a partnership to also accelerate your company's journey? Count on us and we will work together to achieve the analytical maturity of your business.

See you later!

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