The importance of data analytics
The timing of this book could not be more appropriate – consider what Gartner recently had to say about the impact of COVID-19 upon the world around us:
"From crisis to opportunity, the role of data and analytics is expanding and becoming more strategic and mission-critical…Massive disruption, crisis, and the ensuing economic downturn are forcing companies to respond to previously unimaginable demands to resource optimize, reinvent processes and rethink products, business models, and even their very purpose. Only resilient, nimble, and creative organizations will survive and thrive."
(https://www.gartner.com/en/doc/718161-top-10-trends-in-data-and-analytics-2020)
Read that again:
"…the role of data and analytics is expanding and becoming more strategic and mission-critical…"
Businesses and organizations must become excellent at data analytics. They must excel at gathering, understanding, sharing, and actioning data. The current global pandemic has caused widespread uncertainty and unrest and has left many organizations in a precarious state. Misgivings about the global economy and fear of ongoing illness, as well as the closure of international and domestic borders, have all contributed to fragile mindsets and anxious cultures. The economic downturn, digital disruption, and growing competition have created an environment where businesses and organizations cannot ignore or minimize the value of data and insights. Data analytics has become imperative.
However, in my experience, very few organizations excel at gathering, understanding, sharing, and actioning data. Even in those organizations that create and maintain functional data analytics, it is estimated that as many as 75% of users do not use them regularly. Leaders and team members, as one of our clients once put it, are "flying blind." We certainly are not lacking information today. I think that most people will agree, though, that we are suffering from information overload – we are drowning in data! Data can be both a blessing and a curse – a help and a hindrance. After years of working in the data analytics industry and speaking with many businesses and organizations, it has become apparent to me that the subject of data insights is a frustrating one for many. What should be a great boon for the organization is, in fact, a burden.
CRMA has the power to change all this – if it's well understood, correctly implemented, and rightly used.
One such example is that of our client. 18 months ago, they were drowning in data but starving for insights. UA had terabytes of information spread across multiple systems and clouds, and actionable insights were very difficult to obtain. For a data-driven organization such as UNICEF, this was a source of great frustration. However, with the expertise of their internal team, the power of CRMA, and the help of our analytics experts and Visioneer360, the situation was drastically turned around. It can be done!
The key to going from data to insight to action is data analytics.
Data, in its raw, unprocessed form, contains the ingredients of a story – ingredients that are not of much use if they're not combined into a data "recipe" to create a story.
What do I mean by a data story? A data story is when information is processed and presented in such a way that it recites a narrative about a situation and draws meaningful conclusions for the reader. There are a plethora of diverse mediums and tools by which data stories can be presented, but the result of a story is actionable insight. I often express this in my three-word mantra:
Figure 1.1 – The three-word mantra
Organizations do not lack data – they lack insights into that data, and they are largely unable to obtain the true value for their data.
Every organization has data. Some organizations have insights into their data. Very few organizations action data insights.
The challenge, then, is data analytics. This is where CRMA comes in – it has the potential to transform data, visualize insights, and enable action.
Perhaps my story will provide some context and insight here. As a self-taught Salesforce business analyst, responsible for implementing and customizing Financial Services Cloud at a financial planning business, I was fortunate to work with a data-driven team and leadership. One of the primary drivers for implementing Salesforce was the vision for actionable business insights. This journey involved data remediation, cultural change, and analytics builds, among other things. Once the Salesforce Reports and Dashboards were up and running and were being used by the team members and leadership, the power of data insights began to be realized. However, the CEO wanted to take this to the next level and run their weekly management meetings only from Salesforce reports – no more slides and spreadsheets!
This ambitious goal required extending my skills into more advanced reporting tools, so we settled on purchasing CRMA licenses. It took some time to learn the tool and build useful dashboards, but the result was impressive. The CRMA dashboards were shared during the weekly management meetings, and the attendees were able to drill into the data and make business decisions based on live information. It was a game-changer, and I was personally hooked on the power, versatility, and actionability of CRMA.
What, then, do you need to gain value from your data, to obtain actionable business insights? Broadly speaking, there are five requirements:
- The right data, of a sufficient quality
- Clearly defined business goals
- A capable data analytics tool
- Skilled individuals to create the data stories
- Organizational commitment to consume, action, and improve the insights
As a brief aside, no one has perfect data, of course, and one advantage of data analytics is its ability to evaluate data quality and plan remediation. However, there is a point where poor data quality and completeness will hinder the usefulness of analytics dashboards to the point where time is better spent on remediation rather than analysis.
Now that we have an understanding of the importance of data analytics, we are going to dive into the subject of this book – CRMA. Why, then, was CRMA formerly known as Einstein Analytics?
