Building a business-focused Data & Analytics Strategy

This article series examines the importance of a business-focused data and analytics (D&A) strategy. The previous article explained what a D&A strategy is and why it is important for every organization. This article will delve into how a D&A strategy is created by offering guidance for a structured approach to develop a well-defined D&A strategy. The business strategy serves as the basis for the D&A strategy and will be translated into concrete D&A ambitions and initiatives.

A company’s business strategy consists of goals which define the overarching direction and long-term objectives of the organization. They provide guidance on how the organization should compete in the market and create value. It establishes priorities such as growth targets, market positioning, competitive differentiation, and innovation ambitions.

When developing a D&A strategy, the business strategy is the essential starting point: it ensures that all D&A initiatives are aligned with the broader goals of an organization. Whether the focus is on operational efficiency, customer experience, or expanding into new markets, the D&A strategy should serve as an enabler of these ambitions by delivering the insights, capabilities, and infrastructure needed to make informed decisions and drive strategic outcomes.

For example, hypothetical Company K has the ambition to grow their market revenue in the upcoming year. To achieve this, the following organization goals are defined:

1. Expand the customer base
2. Improve customer experience
3. Enhance digital visibility

Below, we will describe how these goals can be translated into actual D&A ambitions and initiatives.

Business data ambitions define how data and analytics can actively contribute to achieving the business goals of each company. Rather than approaching data as a generic asset, this step frames it as a targeted enabler: What data is needed? What insights or decisions should it support? What capabilities (e.g., reporting, predictive models, automation) will make an impact? By translating strategic intent into specific D&A requirements and use cases, business data ambitions bridge the gap between high-level corporate goals and a practical design for the D&A strategy.

When considering Company K, business data ambitions could be outlined for each of the strategic goals. For instance, the portfolio and the commercial management teams could enhance the product portfolio by analyzing sales data and leveraging data analytics to identify new potential customer segments. The customer service team streamlines response times using customer service data and implements data segmentation to personalize customer interactions.  Lastly, the digital marketing team refines their digital marketing strategy by utilizing marketing data and enhancing digital visibility through the analysis of digital engagement metrics.

These business domains may not all require the same level of investment in data and analytics. To develop a focused D&A strategy, it is important to define the right business data ambitions and make them specific for different parts of the company if needed and possible.

To enable the business data ambitions, organizations must design a clear and actionable vision of what the D&A function should do in order to meet the strategic needs of the business – the future state of D&A.

This process starts with a thorough ‘current state’ assessment, which examines the organization's existing data landscape, including data quality, accessibility, analytics maturity, technological infrastructure, governance processes, and the overall data culture. Understanding where the organization stands today, provides the baseline against which future needs can be compared.

Based on this understanding and the previously defined business data ambitions, subsequently the future state can be designed. This future state defines the ideal configuration of data capabilities required to support the strategic business domains. It should cover topics such as data governance, reporting and business intelligence, analytics and AI delivery models and the cultivation of a data-literate workforce. It reflects not just technological enhancements, but also organizational changes, cultural shifts, and process improvements necessary to become a data-driven enterprise. Another upside of using business data ambitions is to focus the implementation effort; some D&A capabilities should be company-wide but other (for example specific analytics) requirements can be implemented locally, e.g., for the digital marketing team of Company K.

With both the current and future states defined, a fit-gap analysis is conducted to systematically identify the gaps between today’s capabilities and those required in the future. These gaps may include missing technologies, insufficient governance practices, fragmented data, or a lack of skills and ownership within the business. Addressing these gaps requires a structured and strategic approach. These gaps can be translated into D&A initiatives including dependencies and, for example, the estimated effort.

In order to achieve the company’s data ambitions, the D&A initiatives are summarized in a D&A roadmap: a phased, prioritized action plan that guides the organization’s journey from the current state to the future state.

To ensure coherence and to maximize impact, initiatives must be designed around a clear strategic framework rather than pursued in isolation. This is where the clustering of business data ambitions plays a critical role. These clusters act as organizing principles that will group related initiatives, each aligned with specific business priorities. For example, business data ambitions around optimizing customer data could include initiatives such as defining data ownership, improving metadata and masterdata management, and implementing data stewardship roles in a specific part of the company. By anchoring the roadmap in these clusters of business data ambitions, the organization can drive coordinated progress, foster cross-functional collaboration, and ensure that every initiative contributes to the broader D&A vision.