Clinton Scott, MD at TechSoft, explains what he thinks is the most important part of a Digital Transformation strategy.
Given the growth of data in recent years, effectively understanding, analysing and using it to drive the business must be considered one of the most critical aspects of a Digital Transformation strategy. After all, not having the correct data in place means no digital project can be successfully completed.
Of course, the key to true business intelligence comes not only from understanding data in the context within which it was collected but interpreting it so the company can make accurate decisions in real-time. This connected intelligence can empower an organisation, its people, processes and systems to compete in more dynamic ways than when it was solely reliant on data siloes.
The power of true Digital Transformation lies in its capacity to use connected intelligence to bridge the divide between devices, people and systems. Considering how remote work has become part of the status quo, this can deliver the interconnectivity needs of all personnel in the company. Furthermore, partners and customers will also derive benefit when the organisation uses this agile way of analysing data as they will receive tailored offerings best suited to their specific requirements.
And because this necessitates a cloud-driven environment, a company can extract value from the platform’s high-performance computing capabilities. This means innovations like Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence become available to facilitate infrastructure and data enhancements that better reflect a digitally focused (and transformed) organisation.
As part of this, data visualisation further enables a shift to optimise the information available to the business. People are geared to understand visual data better than numerical data. Creating a data story better highlights trends and potential gaps in a strategy that can be filled to deliver tighter collaboration and rapid innovation. Building from the visual perspective, embedded data analytics give employees access to interactive insights they can further enhance applications whether those are hosted in the Web or driving the company back-end. Tying this together is enterprise reporting capabilities that pull data from any source and shares them throughout the business to effectively deliver business intelligence.
So, whether it is unlocking value through Machine Learning or Artificial Intelligence, neural networks or stream analytics, companies must embrace a data-driven culture. Having data as the lifeblood of the organisation will position it for a more connected future and cope with the unpredictability that 2021 might bring.