Report: Ignoring data can have consequences for businesses

Alation, a leader in enterprise data intelligence solutions, has released a new report explaining how ignoring data can lead to business missteps.

The Alation State of Data Culture Report, found that 97% of data leaders report their companies have suffered the consequences of ignoring data, either missing out on new revenue opportunities, poorly forecasting performance, or making bad investments.

74% of respondents claimed their CFO’s do not invest enough in data and analytics, and 89% of organisations that fell short of their revenue goals blame their CFO for not investing enough. 

Embracing data-driven decision making 

The Alation State of Data Culture Report provides an assessment of the progress enterprises have made in creating a data culture, the challenges they face in embracing data-driven decision-making, and the progress they have made in leveraging data to drive business value.

More than half (56%) of data leaders say their data culture has improved in the past year, and attribute that success to a number of factors:

• Technology: 54% cite investment in new data tools, like data intelligence and data catalogs
• Data governance: 48% cite that improved collaborative data governance builds trust in data
• Data literacy: 51% of all data leaders are fostering a data culture through formal learning and development programs to increase data literacy
• No more gut instinct: More than half, 54%, report that c-level executives almost always rely on data, as opposed to gut instinct, which is a 20-point improvement over last year

“The organisations that learn from data faster understand their customers, innovate, and sense markets quicker and more clearly than others,” said Satyen Sangani, CEO and co-founder, Alation. “Companies that invest in data and build a culture of data literacy do well. Those that don’t fall behind. Companies need to transform how they make decisions and how they work to incorporate data into everything they do. They have to build a data culture.”

Using data to make progress 

It was found that companies with a top-tier data culture are most aware of the risk (73%) of disruption from competitors who are able to use data better; low-tier data culture companies, for whom the risks are even higher, are the least aware of this risk, at only 44%.

“The big takeaway is that organisations are rapidly investing in data culture, adopting data literacy, data search & discovery, and data governance. This report should be a wakeup call for the companies that want to delay their data investments by another year or even another quarter. Building a data culture is the only sustainable way to develop a consistent competitive advantage,” said Sangani.