As countries around the world take measures to tackle both health and energy crises, with the latter due to the tumbling oil price; the coming months continue to pose a challenge for the Asia Pacific region. According to ratings company S&P Global, a recession is now guaranteed as a result of a dip in customer consumption across the region.
While these demands are slated to return – and return with momentum – a natural response right now is for companies and organisations to lean towards conservative spending in the wake of strapped resources. We should then turn to proactive strategies that help turn a period of uncertainty into a period of opportunity, to get the most returns out of every investment.
Data and analytics, coupled with a robust strategy, play a significant role in making these smart business decisions. Effective use of data provides economic impact for businesses in terms of bottom line, improving customer experience, achieving operational efficiency and setting an organisation apart from competitors.
Data Innovation: Beyond data collection and utilisation
According to a recent survey by Splunk, 91% of organisations believe that, given the right data, their organisation is strongly placed to compete and succeed in its markets over the next few years. To better determine where a company is on its data journey, the survey separates:
- Data Deliberators are in the earliest stages of data strategy implementation
- Data Adopters have progressed further; they make good use of their data but have room to improve
- Data Innovators place the strongest strategic emphasis on data alongside an advanced strategy in place to extract business value
Data Innovators hold a clear advantage. In the past year, they have added 83% more revenue to their topline and 66% more profit to their bottom line than Data Deliberators. They are twice as likely as their early-stage counterparts to exceed customer retention targets, and they outpace their fellow data implementers with a mean cost reduction of 4.85%.
Both attitude and methodology set Data Innovators apart – they are likely to have a data-obsessed company culture, one that employs AI technology for data analysis, for thoroughly informed and directed action and results.
How APAC companies measure up
APAC companies surveyed showed a healthy level of data maturity across the region, albeit with immense opportunity present for firms if they tap into insights derived from dark data.
Companies in Japan are by no means data averse as one-third of Japanese companies report bringing data and analytics into all executive decision support processes – the highest percentage of respondents among the companies surveyed.
This is seen in Japanese sports supplies and technology corporation ASICS, where it employed a central data and analytics platform that could address cyber threats and incidents the moment they appear. It also unlocked real-time visibility into incidents through tools including automated log analysis, enhanced social accountability due to improved security and visibility, and boosted efficiency and productivity with streamlined operations.
In Australia, 74% of local organisations have reduced their volume of dark data over the past 12 months. It showed the willingness for Australian firms to harness the potential of dark data and utilise them for something meaningful.
Vodafone Australia addressed a common telecommunications company headache by implementing a central, streamlined data and analytics platform. Before, analysing data regarding operation and network performance involved navigating multiple separate and often manual legacy tools. Implementing a central, streamlined platform helped strengthen operations, network visibility and reporting.
Better utilisation of dark data is also gaining prominence in China, with 31% of surveyed companies reporting that uncovering and better utilising dark data is their most important business and IT priority over the next 24 months, surpassing the global average of 25%. Lenovo China’s story is a good example where Splunk worked with the team to efficiently turn complex data sets into real-time, actionable insights. These intelligent analytics have helped Lenovo unlock the power of its data, enhancing performance and enabling data-backed decision-making across the organisation.
Become a true Data Innovator
Becoming a Data Innovator is an achievable goal, no matter where your company or organisation is on its data utilisation journey, and a few structural changes in perspective can progress it significantly toward that aim.
That starts the designated Chief Data Officer or equivalent establishing a clear data strategy, drive internal initiatives, secure budgets and shift company culture to put data at the fore.
Then, management needs to allocate resources towards the company’s data capabilities. Over half of Data Innovators allocate more than 20% of their IT budget to data and analytics initiatives, while only 17% of Data Adopters and 8% of Data Deliberators do the same.
Companies should also consider democratising analytics to a broader range of employees, as making the right business decisions calls for comprehensive data and analytics tools. From there, organisations can turn to automation to tap into the unlimited economic value unleashed by decoding the insights data provides, increasing volume, variety, velocity and veracity of insights. Automated analysis reduces human error and lets employees focus on higher-value tasks.
Lastly, it is equally important to measure opportunities by understanding where they stand on data use maturity spectrum in order to know what they can gain from improving their commitment to data and what tools are needed to create greater business value that will help them weather through the challenging times ahead.
