5 steps legacy companies need to embrace to become data-driven

Becoming more and more data-driven is not only crucial for new businesses but also for legacy companies that have established their leadership over decades, relying on "traditional” Data & Analytics, and have today to fight against AI and Machine Learning driven new entrants.

This Harvard Business Review article (by Randy Bean & Ash Gupta), taking examples from the banking and insurance markets, highlights 5 high-value steps needed by legacy companies to embrace the latest techniques & maintain their leadership position.

1. 🔎 Prioritize data, based on a thorough understanding of your business.

Quantity does not equal quality, and you need to be able to identify your high-value assets, based on the insights your can derive within your initiatives.

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2. 🔧 Prioritize tech investment, based on business objectives and do not put the cart before the horses.

Avoid the pitfall of focusing on bottom-up, technology-driven initiatives that fail to deliver business value. Start with the impactful business opportunity you are pursuing and derive your technology requirements and roadmap from there.

Keep in mind that technology is a tool, not an objective and that you should not try to reinvent the wheel but instead acquire tools & platforms to achieve time to market & business agility.

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3. 💥 Remove data silos, and facilitate data access with unified platforms, policies, governance.

You will provide your whole organization the opportunity to create value and bring more benefit from all data collected by the company while ensuring legal and ethical considerations are properly managed.

Data Mesh architectures are a good way to approach these at first conflicting needs of centralization of access vs decentralization of usage!

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4. 📚 Educate the C-suite on how ML and AI can impact the business and can be put into practice within the organization.

Without having to know all the technical details, understanding the principles and capabilities of those technologies and approaches is key to drive their integration and the associated change, while articulating the benefits to customers, employees… and investors.

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5. ⌛ Think big, but start small and iterate.

Your AI journey is not a short film but a series of continuous transformations and change management over years and maybe decades. You need to start small, carefully manage costs and business benefits, build a culture of test-and-learn and gradually expand/accelerate. A great recipe to differentiate from the competition!

Shaping the data-driven future of your company starts from embracing those steps.

YOOI supports all enterprises in this journey by helping them:

• building and managing the portfolio of initiatives and data assets,
• automating the tracking of costs and benefits,
• enabling visibility and alignment,
• and powering distributed data communities.

To know more how YOOI can help you in your data-driven business ambitions, schedule a demo!

Further reading: Legacy Companies Need to Become More Data Driven — Fast (hbr.org)

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