How to Make Your Entire Business Data-Focused

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A healthy company culture will keep your business moving forward while navigating constant changes that emerge in the commercial landscape around you.

When you're in the process of improving the way you do things internally, developing a data-driven company culture will push you ahead of the pack, one innovative initiative at a time.

Here, we look at how to create a data-driven company culture while considering the vital role business intelligence software plays in reaching your organizational goals.

Let's start with a quick look at the importance of investing in a progressive company culture.

The importance of a progressive company culture

A progressive company culture is one that keeps its staff engaged and motivated while adapting to constant change through strong leadership and a firm grasp of emerging data analysis technologies.

By focusing on developing a progressive company culture founded on data intelligence, everyone in the business will have a voice while gaining access to the tools to consistently achieve or even exceed their personal goals.

Fostering an open company culture will also ensure everyone feels valued and every operation is cohesive-free from the progress-stunting threat of internal silos or data fragmentation.

With today's millennial workforce commanding increased value, more shared beliefs, and better job satisfaction from their employers than any other generation, developing the right company culture really is the biggest driver of ongoing commercial success.

Did you know? Ninety-four percent of entrepreneurs and 88% of ambitious professionals state that healthy company culture is essential for success.

What is a data-driven company culture?

A data-driven company culture is an approach to communication, collaboration, and strategic thinking that empowers businesses to operate using comprehensive visual insights.

An extension of company values, social events, flexible working terms, and reward & recognition schemes, the data-driven aspect of company culture exists to help businesses (and those working within them) achieve a sustainable sense of business intelligence.

By working with cutting-edge data analysis technologies and processes, you will create a company culture that:

  • Transforms quality data into actionable insights across every department
  • Is transparent and equipped to share relevant progress updates as well as valuable insights with its internal talent at all times
  • Can adapt to change and respond to any issues with confidence and clarity
  • Values collaboration, communication, and staff input
  • Consistently delivers on its promises and remains productive at all times
  • Innovates, inspires, and creates in ways that drives constant commercial development

"Data really powers everything that we do."-Jeff Weiner

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How to create a data-driven company culture: The essential steps

Now that you're up to speed with the importance, benefits, and meaning of creating a data-driven company culture, let's look at how you can make it happen-starting with getting the right people on your side.

1. Get full senior stakeholder buy-in

First of all, to create a data-driven company culture, you have to get full senior buy-in. If all of your executives and senior decision-makers are on board, your newfound data-driven values will filter down throughout the organization, ensuring everyone moves to the beat of the same informational drum.

To get universal senior buy-in, you should build a concrete case that outlines how using business intelligence software and improved data analysis processes will drive efficiency, growth, and profit. Covering the overall organizational benefits as well as examples related to each internal department will make your case more persuasive.

If you're looking for ideas on how to build a solid case for business intelligence software, our essential guide to dashboard software) will tell you all you need to know to get started.


2. Understand your business goals & existing business intelligence (BI) needs

Another key component of achieving a data-driven company culture is taking the time to understand your core organizational goals.

By gaining a definitive understanding of what you're looking to achieve, you will uncover your business intelligence needs. Each goal presents a unique challenge that adopting a data-driven approach will help to tackle head-on. That said, when goal-setting, you will soon realize where you're struggling in terms of analytical strategy.

One of your core business goals, for example, might be to improve communication, collaboration, and campaign planning between your sales and marketing departments within the next 12 months. By setting this concrete goal, you may quickly realize that there is significant informational fragmentation between the two departments due to fragmented data sources. In this case, you can use data analysis technologies and an online dashboard creator to consolidate your most valuable sales and marketing insights, breaking down silos while creating cohesion between the two departments.

3. Set the right key performance indicators (KPIs)

With your key business goals and business intelligence needs firmly outlined and your senior decision-makers on board, you can bring your data-driven initiatives to life by setting provisional key performance indicators (KPIs).

Work through each goal or desired outcome in detail and assign key performance indicators that you believe will help you benchmark your progress or success with accuracy.

Based on the improved sales and marketing cohesion goal, for instance, you could set KPIs based on lead generation and conversion rates that both departments can share, inspiring collaboration and interdepartmental strategy in the process.


Click to read InetSoft's client reviews and comments to learn why they chose InetSoft.

4. Work with software dashboards and BI tools

At this point, we've mentioned the vital role of business intelligence software and data analysis technologies in creating a data-driven company culture several times. Now, we're going to dig a little deeper into the subject.

Once you've set KPIs that align with your business goals, you should invest in dynamic dashboard software. Working with the right online dashboard creator will not only help you clean and consolidate your most valuable company data, but it will also present all insights in the form of highly visual interactive key performance indicators.

As you can see from our executive sales summary dashboard example, this interactive informational hub is equipped with a balanced mix of visual KPIs that offer real-time analysis as well as predictive and historical data that help to uncover trends or patterns with ease.

Here, everyone within your sales and marketing departments can leverage profit, costs, markup, and revenue-centric data to measure the success of various initiatives while improving decision-making across the board. By gaining access to this detailed level of digestible data, you can break down organizational silos and ensure your entire company is operating at optimum capacity.

5. Provide training & welcome feedback


With your data-driven initiatives and software up and running, you will need to brief everyone in the organization on the new tools and processes.

The best approach here is to provide a relaxed company update where you outline the new data-centric strategy and explain the benefits of this new way of working.


Hosting a series of small practical workshops will also give everyone the training they need to embrace the BI software and benefit from making data-driven decisions within their daily tasks or job roles.

Throughout this phase of the process, it's vital that you check in with your internal talent regularly to offer support where it's needed while giving everyone an outlet to provide feedback. This is invaluable when it comes to making continual improvements to your strategy with confidence and across touchpoints (in-person, via an online feedback form, polls, surveys, etc.).

Read why choosing InetSoft's cloud-flexible BI provides advantages over other BI options.

6. Nurture continual evolution & development

In an ever-evolving digital age, it always pays to keep your finger on the pulse of emerging trends and keep progressing your skills or processes with the landscape around you. This buoyant and responsive approach to business is the heart of creating a sustainable data-driven company culture.

By empowering staff with the opportunities to upskill themselves in data analytics and business intelligence, you will boost satisfaction levels, improve engagement, and enjoy the best possible return on investment (ROI) for your new BI-centric initiatives.

Giving your staff time during their working week to train or study while offering access to self-directed courses is the best way to nurture continual development and ultimately achieve a data-driven company culture that will give you an edge on the competition.

Conclusion

"Data is like garbage. You'd better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it."-Mark Twain

Working towards a data-driven company is a fairly extensive process. But, by laying solid strategic foundations and getting everyone on board, you will meet or even exceed your goals quicker than you might think.

Dashboard software is the catalyst for any successful data-driven company culture. Embrace its power, and you will accelerate the growth of your business in ways you never thought possible.

For more data-driven enlightenment, read our exploration of business intelligence in the healthcare sector.