Increasingly, organizations will rely on cloud platforms to accelerate their transformation to a data-driven enterprise. Every company must move quickly to assess its data analytics capabilities and chart a course for transformation to a data-driven enterprise. It is a crucial part of becoming more responsive to customers and to market opportunities, and more agile given the rapidly changing nature of technology and the marketplace.
Advanced innovation and business agility with cloud, AI and analytics
As the world becomes increasingly digitized, staggering amounts of data are being generated by people, organizations, government agencies and, now, “things.” In fact, according to one report, 5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day around the world.
But are companies making effective use of their own customer and operational data for competitive advantage? For the most part, the answer is, “No.” Certainly organizations acknowledge the value of data, and are using more sophisticated technology to capture it. But, as Gartner® notes, nearly 97 percent of data sits unused by organizations. Gartner also reports that more than 87 percent of organizations are classified as having low maturitylevels in terms of business intelligence and analytics capabilities.
This capability deficit comes at a time when it could severely restrict a company’s growth or even weaken overall viability. That’s because the demands for data are growing dramatically. In an Accenture study entitled, “From Bottom Line to Front Line,” we found that high-performing organizations are seeing a significant increase in the demand for data and analytics, from sources well beyond just IT operations and finance. In fact, we are seeing an increased demand for data across entire lines of business.
The goal: Operating an intelligent enterprise powered by cloud-enabled insights
An Accenture study revealed a direct correlation between high performance and becoming what we call a “data-driven enterprise”—a company that can use the cloud as a catalyst for maximizing the value of data, and treating it as an asset differentiated by its completeness and quality.
Such companies use data as the basis for innovation, business agility, and critical business decision-making through artificial intelligence and analytics to improve effectiveness, reduce risk and drive new sources of revenue. Data-driven businesses embed cloud-based data and predictive analytics at their core. They are characterized by optimization, prediction, continuous learning, and an insights-driven culture.
The benefits can be significant. In Accenture’s experience, data-driven organizations are outperforming their competitors in terms of profitability as well as customer acquisition and retention.
One stumbling block: The ability to build the right cloud architecture to support data on cloud (see next section).
Creating a “data on cloud” strategy
Where businesses are still relying on old, proprietary data sourcing systems, the documentation of business logic and rules are poor and data preparation from source to presentation is slow. As a result, the data transformation cycle for reporting can take days, resulting in reduced sales and poor business performance.
To overcome these limitations, companies need to transition from their legacy data sourcing and integration system to a more modernized, future-ready, flexible and scalable data architecture on the cloud. This can enable data capture in real time, reduce processing time (sometimes by more than 50 percent), and accelerate business outcomes.
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