58% of companies with the strongest revenue growth collaborate with customer on products and services.
In other words, today’s data and analytics position you to disrupt your marketplace — or even new marketplaces you aren’t currently competing in — rather than simply enabling you to respond to the disruption of others.
You may even find your data analytics driving new business and revenue streams, among new and existing customers, as it becomes so valuable to a target audience that you’re able to monetize it. An EY client moved from selling water chemicals, to using digitally connected sensors to monitor customers’ cooling towers, to charging on the basis of cooling-tower efficacy — because it could draw richer insights into optimizing operations from its data than its customers had access to from anywhere else.
Data-driven decision-making will move you toward internal cultural change
You expect data to inform broader-based strategies that stretch your company’s thinking beyond the parameters of previous business-strategy thinking. You may already be moving toward an ecosystem perspective and away from your historic product-centricity. You may be embracing the idea of continuous innovation over continuous improvement.
Early movers stand out for defining a vision for digital transformation, changing compensation, and establishing a fail-fast culture.
But you will find that today’s data analytics not only change the way you think but also affect the entire nature of your organization, structurally and culturally. For one thing, modern data analytics undertakings are enterprise-wide initiatives, not just IT projects. You must deploy your data analytics transformation in an agile way, because the pace of business change is increasing — the problem you want to address could change before you are fully deployed. And your IT departments may already understand this.
Collaboration
65%of IT executives successfully collaborate across functions.
Ultimately, however, you’ll find that the networking effect embodied in big data is much greater than the operating-efficiency effect. Connectivity is vital, not only across your functions and business units but across your supply chain and the rest of your ecosystem. Connect with other members of your ecosystem and you can access data that’s being created elsewhere. Then bring this bigger-picture perspective to creating broader, higher-impact solutions.
Data and your approach to analytics have the ability to change your business — the way you do business, even the business you’re in. But you must start using data in different ways — not just for product development but for business model change. Which means setting up your analytics program to expand the insight and strategic advantage you get from your data.
Because ultimately, you want to move from selling product, which tends to get commoditized and price-sensitive over time, to selling outcomes, which provides added value to your customers and greater profit margins for your company.
Summary
Data and your approach to analytics have the ability to change your business — the way you do business, even the business you’re in. But you must start using data in different ways — not just for product development but for business model change.
