How to create a Data-Driven culture for your company?

Having a data-driven company culture allows you to make the most of the customer data you have. In addition to having the right technology tools to process and leverage that data, you also need to consider the human approach, the overall organization of the company, and the type of work you need to do.

In this article, we will explain what a Data-Driven culture is and how to implement it in your company.

What is a Data-Driven culture?

A data-driven organization can integrate data effectively and consistently into its decision-making process and across all levels of the organization.

Acquiring technologies such as business intelligence tools or building a team of data experts can be within the reach of most organizations. However, changing the mindset of the different actors in the company and creating a working culture driven primarily by data is more difficult. Like any change, a data-driven culture must be accepted by all and implemented at all levels of the organization.

Putting data at the center of what needs to be done, from the hiring process to reporting, providing employees with the right analytics tools, and adopting a data strategy are ways to ensure an effective data-driven culture. The goal is to build a cultural framework that helps everyone in the organization better collaborate by putting data at the center of decision-making.

The main objective is to enable all employees to actively use data to improve their day-to-day work and fully leverage the company’s potential by making decisions more successful and initiatives more effective.
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What are the benefits of a Data-Driven corporate culture?

Organizations that have a Data-Driven culture have more tools in hand to better address the challenges they face in their field.

Better exploit market opportunities:

Having a data-driven culture allows you to better manage risky decisions like exploiting new opportunities in the market or creating new products or services that respond to new consumer trends. Companies that base their decisions on tangible data can make the right decisions with a greater chance of success.

Improve revenue to drive sales:

Companies that embrace data will be able to create opportunities and develop solutions that increase the profitability of existing revenue streams.

Amazon, for example, uses its extensive consumer data, such as preferences, browsing history, and recent purchases, to feed its product recommendation engine and include “frequently purchased items” at checkout. This feature alone helps generate about 35% of the company’s revenue.

Create customer-centric solutions:

Customers drive revenue and with the power of data-driven decision making, they will be able to develop solutions that specifically address their customers’ needs.

 Build more efficient and productive teams

For a company with a data-driven organization, the use of data is not limited to improving the customer experience or launching new products.

Through the use of HR data, analyzing employees allows companies to build more effective teams and better manage talent, especially in a world where remote work has become increasingly normalized since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Walmart, like many supermarkets, faces issues with high employee turnover and attrition. Through data and analytics, the company was able to determine that an employee who quits within the first 3 months represented a net loss to the company and that millions of dollars would be saved if the turnover was reduced by 1%. Thanks to data, Walmart decided to take steps like investing in talent development and budgeting $1 billion to increase employees’ compensations. This led to stronger internal teams, resulting in improved customer service and a more productive workforce.

How to create a Data-Driven culture?

Determine your business goals

The first question you should ask yourself is “why do I need to build a data-driven business?”

Once your goal is clear, you need to ask yourself how you can leverage your data across the different positions in the company. Not every team in your company uses data in the same way. Define profiles to categorize your employees based on the degree to which they use data. For example, a data scientist will need to build complex models with the data, while a marketer will need more basic data, such as the results of their cross-channel strategy.

Once the profiles are defined, you can establish the data usage objectives for each position. For data scientists, for example, how should they use data? What do you expect from your marketers’ use of data?

Evaluate your company’s Data-Driven culture

Once these different profiles are defined, think of your company’s data culture. To do this, you can talk to your various employees, paying attention to the following points:

• Are the data integration procedures implemented efficiently?
• Do your employees use data sufficiently to make the right decisions?
• Is there a team that specifically deals with the organization and monitoring of the Data-Driven process?

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Share the results with the team

You must analyze the results and share them with the teams. Point out what is not working and try to find the right solutions. If the data is poorly organized, if it isn’t understood by your employees, if they don’t use the data enough and base their decisions on it, you should point it out and act.

Engage your teams

A Data-Driven culture must be consistent, understood, and integrated to become a full part of the teams’ daily lives.

If all the above points are not properly met, you need to make improvements to your company’s data culture. Changing the company culture can be complicated, so take the time to explain the changes you need to adapt to your employees. After all, a data culture relies on the mindset of your team, not just the technology tools at their disposal.

Evaluate these changes and improve them

Don’t be in a hurry and take the changes step by step. Create a roadmap and set up key performance indicators to measure progress. This will allow you to know which steps need to be corrected and which optimizations need to be made.

The human approach should not be underestimated when implementing a data culture in your company. It is not only a technological evolution. In concrete terms, this culture translates into an evolution of the mindset of your teams. That’s why it’s fundamental to focus your efforts on your employees.

If you need support to implement your Data-Driven culture, Eminence can help you.