Research indicates that by 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical business asset and analytics as an essential competency.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR DATA
Do you know what your organisations digital business strategy is? Are you clear about the value of a digital business strategy for your organisation?
If you do not know, you are not alone. Research from Gartner indicates businesses across all industries struggle with determining the value of data and analytics to their business model and yet the same research indicates that by 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly mention information as a critical business asset and analytics as an essential competency.
Hence, the ability to understand, analyse and utilise business data effectively is becoming essential for organisations and industries not only to survive but to thrive in environments that are increasingly complex and subject to rapid change.
The data we collect, allows us, as never before to understand our client’s needs and interests which in turn enables businesses to enhance client’s customer experience and build loyalty. Having a loyal customer base is often the lynch pin on which an organisation will either thrive or fail.
For smaller for-profit organisations and many not-for-profit services, Analytics and data from their website is a starting point for rich initial information on clients. These insights often get ignored in the day to day running of the organisation.
The analytics tell us about how long people are staying on our website. The search or key words people use indicate their intentions and what they are searching for. The analytics also indicate the demographics of people visiting our website and whether these demographics are in our target group. If we are reaching people outside our target group, why is this occurring? Do we need to shift our messaging? What is our conversion rate from people visiting the website? The information we obtain from analysing this data is important because it helps us assess whether we are providing our customers the experience they are seeking with the products we are providing.
This is all important data we need to consider when building our digital business strategy. However, in positioning our organisation to thrive in a rapidly changing environment, it is not just analysing the data collected internally, it is also looking at data from third party sources such as sites where individuals publicise their thoughts and opinions. In reviewing the data and information from both sources we pick up customer trends as they are beginning to occur; enabling us to adjust our messaging and/or products to capture the shifting demographics or interests of customers.
Having a clear coherent digital business strategy will enable brand's to meet the needs of their customers and clients in ways that not only meet their needs but also build brand loyalty and advocacy for the organisation.
