The future of data-driven decision-making according to McKinsey
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Where is your company today on these seven milestones:
1️⃣ Data embedded in every decision, interaction, and process
➣ Problems aren’t solved by developing lengthy roadmaps that could take years to execute. Instead, nearly all employees can tap into real-time data that provides answers instantly.
➣ Automating recurring tasks frees employees to focus on “human” domains (innovation, collaboration, and communication).
2️⃣ Data is processed and delivered in real-time
➣ Today, only a fraction of available data is analyzed in real-time. By 2025, technology improvements will ensure all data from connected devices is available.
➣ Cloud computing will be the norm at lower prices than today, enabling more advanced use cases for delivering insights.
3️⃣ Flexible data stores enable integrated, ready-to-use data
➣ Today, Data engineers waste time manually editing databases. AI technology and other software advances will eliminate much of this work, resulting in fewer errors and a better ability to scale.
➣ These new databases can apply machine learning to enable sophisticated simulations and what-if scenarios.
4️⃣ Data operating model treats data like a product
➣ Issues are common if data is managed like a commodity with top-down controls. Data is duplicated, siloed, and lacks an owner.
➣ In the future, companies treat data like a product, even if it’s only used internally. Product management techniques like the agile method make it more valuable and accessible.
5️⃣ The chief data officer’s role is expanded to generate value
➣ Data owners have profit-and-loss responsibilities since they are developing new sources of revenue by monetizing existing data.
6️⃣ Data-ecosystem memberships are the norm
➣ Today, data is siloed, and data-sharing arrangements with external partners and competitors are rare.
➣ By 2025, data pooling across organizations will be commonplace. Companies only keep unique data for themselves and share the rest via data marketplaces. As a result, the value is greater than the sum of its parts.
7️⃣ Data management is prioritized and automated for privacy, security, and resiliency
➣ Data-security protections are manual, time-consuming, and error-prone to establish in today’s environment. Data recovery is spotty at best.
➣ Government regulations and increasing consumer awareness have elevated data security to a new level in the future. Predefined “scripts” allow self-service provisioning, eliminating manual work.
This was a summary of an article published in January 2022. The authors are McKinsey partners Neil Assur and Kayvaun Rowshankish. You can read the full article here.
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