The ‘Leading’ and ‘Mature’ companies amongst the respondents of our Data Maturity Survey are not only the most advanced in setting up their Data & Analytics (D&A) operations, as a result these companies have also been able to achieve the highest returns on their data analytics investment. They are achieving the best results both in terms of revenue increase and cost reduction through Data & Analytics initiatives.
Most organizations are still at the start of their journey
Overall Data & Analytics maturity in the Netherlands
79% of the respondents have a low Data & Analytics maturity
We have looked at what makes these companies stand out from the rest and have found that the key differences that make or break a digital leader are to be found in the strategic, organizational and cultural elements that these companies established within their organization, see the exhibit below.
The three concrete elements that came out on top for the leading Data & Analytics organizations are:
- A solid and clear data strategy as a starting point.
- Value management throughout the use-case lifecycle.
- Full commitment from senior leadership on the topic.
As the exhibit indicates, having a solid data strategy is one of the first steps in becoming Mature, since 100% of Leading and Mature companies have defined one compared with only 60% of the less mature companies. When developing a data strategy in our experience, a critical success factor is a clear focus on the connection between the business demand with the data & analytics supply (the technology, capabilities and processes to execute data analytics use cases effectively). Without this connection, companies run higher risks of slow realization of tangible value, lack of confidence in analytics and higher costs due to delays/re-work.
The importance of measuring Data & Analytics initiatives
Value management is another important element: here we can see a real divide between high- and low-maturity companies, since only 32% of low-maturity companies manage to measure value. At KPMG we believe that successful value management includes the end-to-end chain of value, from the definition of use case expected value to the monitoring of the benefits. Using Value Hacking, an iterative approach to explore the value of D&A initiatives, and investing in consistent benefit tracking lead to better evaluation and better prioritization of D&A initiatives.
Senior leadership awareness and commitment
Other central elements where we see a big difference are related to the company culture: a leadership that is fully committed to D&A initiatives and top-down stimulus that support data-driven decision-making throughout the organization is a key foundation for success. Business stakeholder awareness and commitment is one of the most difficult elements to influence, but it is critical for increasing digital maturity and data literacy. It is built gradually through the definition of a Data strategy, strong commitment towards an investment scenario, embedding of the right capabilities and effective communication across the organization.
To support our clients in becoming more data mature we work with the strategic pillar model for a data-driven organization. Read our article "Becoming a data-driven company is more than investing in technology" for more information. This model has also been used as the basis for the execution of the data maturity survey.
Interested in the detailed survey results?
Download the Data Maturity whitepaper "The importance of a data mature organization in the new reality" here below.
For more information you can contact me directly
Bas Overtoom
Director Data & Analytics
overtoom.bas@kpmg.nl