Data and analytics is becoming a powerful tool in companies’ quest to reach higher performance goals while calibrating the risks that could hamper them. The report describes some of the opportunities opened up by D&A, both to improve corporate performance and manage risk and explores these key findings:

The survey shows that the main uses of D&A in the next three years will be to enhance corporate performance, link it to the management of risk, and to improve the customer experience. Nearly half of respondents say such initiatives will enable the company to take on additional risk in order to plan and implement strategic changes.

Nearly a quarter of respondents say their business has achieved sizeable benefits from aligning risk and performance management and a further 49 percent say there have been some benefits. In the next three years, the survey results show that companies expect the main benefits of these efforts will be to develop revenue sources, improve operational efficiency, and gain greater customer insights.

There are significant challenges in using D&A initiatives to support decision-making, notably an excessive number of such initiatives and a lack of support from executive management. Top executives often do not understand how to make the most of D&A.

Corporate strategy should not only drive an effective use of D&A initiatives, but the latter can also help to calibrate strategy by continually providing deeper business insights and, often, enhancing the ability to anticipate changes in the market.