What’s in a Data Strategy?

Data Strategy: The short version?

Data Strategy is simply a way forward with data that allows you to achieve a specific goal or set of goals for your business. It’s a plan of what you want to do with data to capitalise on the value it holds. That could be that for decision making, productisation or other business endeavours.

Data Strategy: The long version?

There are many different ways to draw up a data strategy. Fundamentally, you should build a strategy for your business after a deep analysis of all your business internals, including overall strategy. This takes time, and varies from business to business. Remembering that things like size, sector and the chosen end goal for your data will drive this.

It’s really clear that data is here to stay, and that it changes faster than almost every other business asset. Bearing this in mind, it’s easy to see why a ‘one size fits’ approach may only work for a short period, which may not take into account your business and market shifts.

You could put in tactical solutions to deliver on specific outcomes for immediate use, and these will likely have massive benefits. Problem here is that if they’re not all pulled together, it’s very easy to silo out data and solutions and cause headaches further down the line. Avoiding this common pitfall is one of the purposes of a data strategy. Equally, another pitfall to avoid is the need of an overall technical approach to how you’ll collect, analyse and govern data. This is often overlooked in tactical solutions, and can cause problems elsewhere (such as audit).

In conclusion

Your data strategy should be part of your wider business strategic direction that drives long term value. It needs to consider all the nuances of your business whilst providing a clear return on your investment. This is where the true value of a well formed data strategy appears.

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