We have heard so much recently about AI and the impact it will have on every origanisation.  And yet, working with small and mid-cap businesses, we constantly see that they are not able to access the data generated by the organisation and are not generating relevant and valuable insights.

Why? There is often no one person sponsoring the need to get on top of the issue, no one making it a central focus area and helping the business to believe it can be sorted. Culturally, it’s about ownership and accountability but someone needs to lead the revolution. The problems are rooted in:

- legacy ERP systems that do not talk to each other
- poor processes meaning that the most relevant data is not captured accurately, leading to quality issues
- outdated technology meaning they do not have access to latest automation or visualisation tools

Why does it matter? Poor data management often results in poor alignment across teams, different understandings, opinions not based on facts, no single version of the truth, no evidence-based decision-making. Companies underestimate the cost of poor data management in terms of lost opportunities, re-work, brand and regulatory damage. And moreover, forecasting and predicting future requirements become very difficult without a strong, reliable, source of data.

What can you do about it?

Most importantly, decide what insights you need to run the business and to meet your strategic and day-to-day decisions.
Improve the Financial literacy of your S & OP teams – help them to see the impact that their activities on the overall company performance. Make sure that everything they do is linked to the overall Company financial objectives and that they have the data to see the effect of their activities.
Support investment in new, accessible analytical tools as well as training and development which will help to “democratize” data for all. Simplify self-serve analytics.

Call us for a conversation about how our data analysts can help your business to start using the data you have to get into shape and learn more about what lies behind how your business is operating and what levers you can pull to make change and improvement.