Data traction: Is your company a “data thriver” or just a “survivor”?

The phrase “data is the new oil” has become an overused cliché lately. While it has helped create awareness of the value of data, many organizations still struggle to realize the full potential of the data they collect.

Where possible, these interactions with data need to be insightful, automated, and immediate, or just a jumble of zeros and ones. This is called data traction.

mining for gold

In any market segment you choose to look at, you will find that the market leaders are those who have exceptional data mining skills. Accurate and easily accessible data gives businesses the traction they need to engage customers and deliver information or engagement without delay.

When customers compare order fulfillment metrics as a performance indicator, they use Amazon’s free next-day delivery as the benchmark, not industry median performance.

Once they’ve experienced an insurer that processes their claims fully digitally, without having to wait in a call center queue, including frequent proactive progress updates, it resets their expectation forever.

However, this success is no accident; Success in a data-driven economy requires a concerted effort, including the connection strategy that binds people to data, platforms and locations to ensure the customer experience is optimal and continuously improved.

In comparison, those who don’t make full use of their data a priority may well continue to exist, but the laggards in this area will eventually be left behind as the world around them changes.

Thrivers vs. Survivors

Data center provider NEXTDC describes the different approaches companies take to digital transformation as a battle between “data thrivers” and “data survivors” – the former constantly improving their service delivery and the latter just struggling to stay afloat.

A study conducted by McKinsey showed that data-driven companies are 23 times more likely to find and convert customers, 6 times more likely to retain loyalty and repeat business from those customers, and 19 times more likely to run a profitable business. These types of organizations are data thrivers.

Organizations struggling to take full advantage of data traction are referred to as data survivors. They keep the lights on and manage at the tactical level – but the lack of an overarching data-driven strategy constantly prevents them from focusing on identifying and improving the areas of their business that bring the greatest improvement.

In a data economy, there are winners and losers. The losers stick around Status quoby going with the old ways to avoid the risk of a perceived small loss by investing in better data and systems. Instead of choosing to risk a “possible” gain by investing in change and the value of data.

Achieving data traction

According to McKinsey, leveraging data through comprehensive and in-depth customer analysis enables companies to outperform their competitors.

The consulting firm conducted a large study over three years comparing data survivors to data thrivers, and the thrivers saw six times better operational efficiencies, three times greater profitability and acquisition velocity, and twice the revenue growth and customer satisfaction.

Just having data is not enough. When data is treated as static overhead, its value is reduced. However, when data flows freely and interactions with that data are seamless, business improvement accelerates. Efficiency reduces overhead and improves productivity, while revenue comes from a better understanding of customer behavior.

Chemist Warehouse is a company that has flipped its data strategy with the help of NEXTDC strategists.

“Our infrastructure began to groan under the strain of exponential growth,” said Mark Naidoo, head of IT architecture, Chemist Warehouse. “We needed a new suite of technologies that would support our vision of being vendor, operator and cloud agnostic. We always want to have opportunities to evaluate and deploy solutions that best serve individual projects and strategic goals,”

NEXTDC works with Australian organizations to minimize friction between the disparate systems in their hybrid architecture and achieve better utilization of their data.

It just released a major study from S&P Global Market Intelligence examining how flaws in network architecture can slow down companies’ data-driven decision-making.

Check out the report: Making Hybrid IT Agile: Using Colocation and Networking to Drive Digital Transformation.

Grab it to NEXTDC to better understand how interconnection strategy is key to achieving business success in a world where hybrid IT architecture and the data it manages are key to success.