As more organizations become better in applying data and analytics, the value is no longer merely incremental or marginal — but table stakes to compete. While decision makers have more access to data than ever before, there’s little way to make sense of it unless there is cultural change in adopting to new technological trends.

New research delves into the difference between executives who are data-driven and those who are just data-saturated. It clearly demonstrates that business leaders understand the importance of data — two-thirds report that they work with data every day. Yet, 74% of executives say they face challenges using their data, and 36% say most of their decisions are not based on data. Companies know that the path to the future depends on using data, but despite years of investments in modern data infrastructure, they struggle to put that data to use. To survive in today’s economy, every organization must become a data driven company. Many companies still struggle to get the basics of time to market the data – timely, accessible, complete, and accurate data.

To become data-driven, leaders need to know more about their data. Focusing on simply moving and storing more data means some of the basic components of data management are lost — where is data coming from? Who has access to it? How accurate is it? Data management, which largely focuses on moving and storing data, doesn’t consider the overall health of data. Therefore, in trying to manage data, companies are in fact creating digital landfills of corporate information.

There is a need to bring in drastic change in the way data quality is ignored. Data health is the future because it recognizes fundamental standards for quality and reliability are critical for corporate survival. Data health will include monitoring and reporting capabilities to help organizations understand and communicate in a quantifiable way — the reliability, risk, and return of this highly critical business asset.

Management should know what a data-driven organization looks like:

• Forward Looking. The strategic role of data and analytics shifts from use cases of historical reporting and performance review to ex-ante predictive analytics.
• Federated Data Governance. Data is a strategic asset across the organization, with formal procedures and accountability to maintain accuracy and timeliness.
• Metrics for Benchmarking. The business impact contributed by data and analytics is continually measured through a set of KPIs.
• Scalability. The use of data and analytics is fully scaled and operationalized with applications to thousands of small decisions.
• Full Toolkit. A set of core capabilities—such as data sourcing, standardized analytical tools, analytical models/techniques—is available to all lines of business for a range of use cases.
• New Breed of Professionals. The data talent bench is refreshed with new experts and groomed in-house talent, including “tweeners” who understand both business and technical issues.
• Easy Front-End Access to Data. Centralized and connected authoritative data sources that describe a “single version of truth” are accessible to employees for analysis, decision-making and reporting.