While 88% of business leaders polled in Asia agreed that it is important for their organizations to have an agile business that is data-driven, less than half of them (43%) believe they have a full digital strategy in place, according to the findings of Microsoft’s first ever Asia Data Culture Study 2016.
Business leaders also identified gaps in their organizations’ ability to drive data driven decision making.
Andreas Hartl, General Manager, Cloud and Enterprise Division, Microsoft Asia Pacific said, “The confluence of cloud, mobility and data is changing the way companies do business with their customers. This is resulting in new demands that make it necessary for every business to transform to a digital and data-driven business.”
“In today’s mobile-first, cloud-first world, technology is interwoven into every aspect of our personal lives, forcing all businesses to be a digital business. As data is the electricity of the new economy, businesses need to turn data into actionable insights and predict the future as a way to get ahead of the trends and develop new revenue streams. Faced with economic uncertainties and disruptive competitors, analytics and predictive data is what organizations need to survive. With the right tools, insights can come from anyone, anywhere, at any time. When that happens, organizations develop what we describe as a ‘data culture’,” added Hartl.
The New Data Culture in Asia’s Organizations
The report says the New Data Culture involves three organizational traits:
- Infrastructure for Data Agility: Data platforms need to be interoperable with multiple data sources to collect information from any device, share it and present it in a meaningful way. There is a left to right view of the business enabling better decision making real time. Intelligence is built in to develop predictions from data.
- Data Governance for Collaboration: There is C-Level ownership of the data strategy where access to data is democratized and governed by policies to protect information while empowering employees to collaborate seamlessly.
- An Analytical Workforce: The ability to access and analyze data is held by a select few, for example, data scientists or statisticians. For a new data culture to happen, talents across the board need to have the ability to ask the right questions, analyze data and drive actionable insights.
The study showed that business leaders in Asia are also keen to take the use of data to the next level. They see the top five benefits of driving a data culture within their organizations as enabling:
- Ability to make real-time decisions (86%)
- Efficiency in operations (85%)
- Improved processes (82%)
- Better business continuity (81%)
- Improved customer satisfaction and retention (77%)
However, the study also revealed that they are facing barriers to driving a data culture. The most common barriers in Asia include:
- Perceived high costs (49%)
- Data security concerns (43%)
- Lack of digital skills in the workforce (36%)
- Fear of change (33%)
- Securing budget (31%)
The report also says that Asia’s businesses need to address the following areas in order to realize their full potential as a data-driven organization: building infrastructure for data agility; data governance for collaboration; and creating an analytical workforce.
A New Data Culture Needs to be Driven Right from the Top
87% of business leaders in Asia feel that the data culture should be driven top down, and there should be a formalised role in the leadership team to drive a successful adoption of their data strategy. Most business leaders felt that the data culture should be led by the CEO or the CIO. Emerging roles like Chief Data Officer and Chief Digital Officer are also increasing in importance.
“Business leaders in the C-suite, have a key role in driving change within the organization. The Asia Data Culture Study showed that business leaders feel that the CEO should champion the new data culture. However, speaking from our own experience at Microsoft, in order for this to stick, it is important that the values of a new data culture are driven and accepted across all levels of the organization. This starts with democratizing of data through technology so that more can access and are empowered to make decisions in ways which create value for the organization,” said Hartl
Journey to a New Data Culture
Business leaders in Asia seem to be open to harnessing information in new ways. The Study showed that they rated, in order of highest to lowest priority: real-time analytics, cloud data storage, Internet of Things (IoT), Data visualization and Predictive data analytics as the top 5 data capabilities that are of importance to them in the next 12 to 18 months. These capabilities are clearly aligned to how they see their data culture evolving to meet their needs.
When it came to leveraging IoT, business leaders in Asia are more focussed on addressing security management and safety monitoring as their top priorities.
“Starting with a pilot and learning from that is key to a successful, longer term journey. Customers need to think about new scenarios which will provide new insights and new opportunities. They need to ask different questions about their business, not just based on hindsight but about the future. Technology has evolved so much that this is no longer science fiction, but is being done by some of our progressive customers today,” said Hartl.