A Data Strategy for Becoming Data Driven

In this digital world, it is becoming clear to many organisations that their success or failure depends on how well they manage data. They recognise that data is as a critical business asset which should be managed as carefully and actively as all other business assets such as people, finance, products etc. But like any other asset data does not improve itself and will decline in usefulness and value unless actively maintained and enhanced.

For any organisation a critical first step in maintaining and enhancing its data asset is to understand two critical things:

• How well does data support our current business model?
• How do we need to improve and develop it both to better sustain our current business and to enable our future business strategies and goals?

The primary purpose of a data strategy is to answer these two critical questions. For any data driven organisation a data strategy is essential because it serves as a blueprint for prioritising and guiding current and future data improvement activities. Without a data strategy, organisations will inevitably try to enhance their data assets in a piecemeal, disconnected, unfocused way, usually ending in disappointment or even failure. What’s needed is a well crafted and coherent data strategy which sets out a clear direction which all data stakeholders can buy into. And as the famous US baseball player Yogi Berra once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up somewhere else.”

This seminar will teach you how to produce a workable and achievable data strategy and supporting roadmap and plan, and how to ensure that it becomes a living and agile blueprint for change.

The seminar

In this full day seminar Nigel Turner will outline how to create and implement a data strategy. This includes:

• How data strategy and business strategy interrelate
• What a data strategy is (and is not) and what it should contain
• Building & delivering a data strategy – the key components and steps
• Managing and implementing a data strategy to ensure it continually aligns with changing business priorities and needs.

The seminar will take you through a simple and proven four step process to develop a data strategy. It will also include practical exercises to help participants apply the approach before doing it for real back in their own organisations, as well as highlighting some real world case studies where the approach has been successful. 

 Learning Objectives

• Know what a data strategy is, and why it is a ‘must have’ for digital organisations
• Understand the mutual relationship between business and data strategies
• Identify what a data strategy needs to include
• Understand and be able to apply a simple approach to developing a data strategy
• Analyse business goals and strategies and their dependence on data
• Highlight current data problems and future lost opportunities
• Make an outline business case for strategic action
• Assess current data maturity against required data capabilities
• Focus in on business critical data areas
• Identify required new or enhanced data capabilities
• Define and create an actionable roadmap and plan
• Secure stakeholder support and buy in
• Manage change and communication across the organisation
• Understand the crucial role of data governance in implementing and sustaining a data strategy
• Track data strategy deliverables and benefits
• Be aware of case studies of successful implementation of the approach
• Highlight software and other tools that can help to support and automate the delivery of the data strategy.