How to Become a Data-Driven Company

The world’s most sophisticated fighter jet, the F-35, costs ~$130M, flies at Mach 1.6 (~1.2K MPH), and contains some of the most sophisticated technology and instrumentation on the planet. Harnessing the power, speed, and precision of the F-35 requires focus and split decisions to be made in seconds. Pilots rely on rigorous training and a sophisticated cockpit dashboard that provides them with all the necessary information and metrics to be successful. 

Similarly, as companies scale and look to maneuver the competitive landscape to gain an edge, having company performance data at their fingertips will help them accelerate and maintain their growth.

What does it mean to be a data-driven company?

As companies accumulate a larger set of customers, it’s likely that the ability to interact with each customer individually becomes more complicated. With that comes the lack of knowledge on how the account is performing. Is the customer likely to churn? Is there an opportunity for expansion? Are users engaging with the product regularly? Is there a new release that needs to be pushed to the customer? What issues might the customer be having with our product? All the answers to these questions likely live in disparate systems for most ScaleUps today, which leads to a fragmented and/or incomplete profile of the customer. 

Some companies, however, are increasingly trying to break down barriers between their data systems. In doing so, they can create a holistic picture of the customer. When data stitches together into one fabric, companies can slice and dice customer data in infinite ways to understand their customer and proactively serve them. 

A data-driven company is one that seeks to capture foundational data across the organization and marry it together to unlock new insights that will accelerate and maintain business growth.

What are the best practices of a data-driven company?

A data-driven company exhibits the following:

• Removes barriers between data sources to unlock additional customer insights

• Spends a significant, but proportional, amount of time and resources on connecting all customer-related data 

• Is thoughtful in the purchase or creation of visualization and activation tools to manage customer data. The number of tools used to capture data does not necessarily need to be siphoned if the dollars to invest exist. If the data feeds into one place, it is simply an opportunity for more datapoints.

• Creates dashboards and ways of viewing insights all the way down from the customer level up to the health of the overall business

• Embeds the use of data and tools as a part of company culture and involves the company in the creation of such tools

• Continuously iterates on data usage

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