Big Data for Big Decisions: Building a Data-Driven Organization - Paperback

by Krishna Pera (Author)

Building a data-driven organization (DDO) is an enterprise-wide initiative that may consume and lock up resources for the long term. Understandably, any organization considering such an initiative would insist on a roadmap and business case to be prepared and evaluated prior to approval. This book presents a step-by-step methodology in order to create a roadmap and business case, and provides a narration of the constraints and experiences of managers who have attempted the setting up of DDOs. The emphasis is on the big decisions - the key decisions that influence 90% of business outcomes - starting from decision first and reengineering the data to the decisions process-chain and data governance, so as to ensure the right data are available at the right time, every time.

Investing in artificial intelligence and data-driven decision making are now being considered a survival necessity for organizations to stay competitive. While every enterprise aspires to become 100% data-driven and every Chief Information Officer (CIO) has a budget, Gartner estimates over 80% of all analytics projects fail to deliver intended value.

Most CIOs think a data-driven organization is a distant dream, especially while they are still struggling to explain the value from analytics. They know a few isolated successes, or a one-time leveraging of big data for decision making does not make an organization data-driven. As of now, there is no precise definition for data-driven organization or what qualifies an organization to call itself data-driven. Given the hype in the market for big data, analytics and AI, every CIO has a budget for analytics, but very little clarity on where to begin or how to choose and prioritize the analytics projects. Most end up investing in a visualization platform like Tableau or QlikView, which in essence is an improved version of their BI dashboard that the organization had invested into not too long ago. The most important stakeholders, the decision-makers, are rarely kept in the loop while choosing analytics projects.

This book provides a fail-safe methodology for assured success in deriving intended value from investments into analytics. It is a practitioners' handbook for creating a step-by-step transformational roadmap prioritizing the big data for the big decisions, the 10% of decisions that influence 90% of business outcomes, and delivering material improvements in the quality of decisions, as well as measurable value from analytics investments.

The acid test for a data-driven organization is when all the big decisions, especially top-level strategic decisions, are taken based on data and not on the collective gut feeling of the decision makers in the organization.

Author Biography

Introduction

Part I Foundation

Chapter 01 Quo Vadis: Before The Transformational Journey

Chapter 02 Decision-Driven Before Data-Driven

Chapter 03 Known's, Unknowns And The Elusive Value From Analytics.

Chapter 04 Towards A Data-Driven Organization: A Roadmap For Analytics

Chapter 05 Identifying The 'Big' Decisions...

Chapter 06 Decisions To Data: Building A 'Big' Decision Roadmap & Business Case

Part II Data Strategy & Governance

Chapter 07 Unchartered: A Brief History Of Data

Chapter 08 Building A Data-Driven 'It' Strategy

Chapter 09 Building A Data Strategy

Part III Data-Driven Marketing Function

Chapter 10 Building A Data-Driven Marketing Strategy

Chapter 11 Integrated Data Governance