If Self-Service BI is the practice, then part of the goal should be to become a Data-Driven Organization? The Economist completed some key research on data-driven organizations,

Eleven percent of respondents state that, in comparison to peers, their organization makes “substantially” better use of data. But top-performing companies comprise more than a third of this group, demonstrating the connection between data driven decision-making and organizational performance.

What it Means to be “Data-Driven”

A Data-Driven Organization is a cultural statement. So what does this “look like”?

• • People ask good questions, challenge assumptions, and have healthy debates on making improvements, investments, or other changes.

• • Many people in the organization have the skills, access to data, and some expertise with BI tools to perform data discovery tasks and successfully extract insights from data.

• • Meetings kick off with a display, discussions, and dive into data first to help shape opinions and the dialogue around facts.

• • Presentations reference their data sources – and these data sources are available to appropriate people in the organization to review, challenge, and conduct follow-up analytics.

• • The IT organization provides a defined set of data management and BI services to assist the organization in its discovery efforts.

• • A defined business strategy helps people focus their data discovery efforts.

• • There are already efforts to drive organizational changes, improve communications, and get “bottoms up” contributions. Becoming “data-driven” is a key, but not the only cultural priority.

• • Efforts to leverage data in decision-making have measurable results – improvements in operations, sales, new revenue-generating products, happier customers, etc.

• • Data is shared and leveraged across different businesses, organizations, and products.

• There is the priority, demand, and hunger to address data quality issues, integrate multiple data sources, capture new types of data, and leverage third-party data to become smarter, faster, and more competitive.

Good enough? Suggestions?