Intelligent business insights – cultivating a data-powered, connected enterprise

When data becomes intelligent, accessible, and tailored to individual needs, it evolves into game-changing, actionable insights that drive a more connected, intelligent organization.

It is sometimes assumed that data, in and of itself, constitutes a benefit to any organization.

If that were true, data would be synonymous with insight, and insight, in turn, would always deliver value. But this is not the case. All too often, data and analytics aren’t delivering the improvements businesses need.

There are several reasons for this:

• Failure to provide the broad view – dashboards of near real-time data feeds may be flashy and dynamic, but they don’t elicit any strategic foresight from which transformative action can be taken.
• Failure to connect – if systems across the enterprise are disparate, the data points they deliver will also be diverse, and actionable correlations will be hidden.
• Failure to deliver when needed – if data is not available and meaningful, it won’t be actionable.
• Failure to tailor – people in different roles have different information needs. One size doesn’t fit all.
• Failure to hit the mark – tables, charts, and spreadsheets may aggregate data – but it still needs to be presented in a way that enables people to identify patterns and act.

Key trends in data and analytics

That’s why we’re seeing the emergence of new trends that address these challenges:

• Data delivery is moving from generic dashboards to personalized stories, enabling different people in different roles to make better decisions faster. Data is, in short, becoming democratized.
• AI enables people to have conversations with their data. It is like having your own personal assistant.
• There is a growing sense that data is more a means than an end. When people, processes, and technology come together, data can become actionable information – information that could transform programs and prospects.
• Advanced analytics are enabling headlamps to shine further along the road. New smart techniques are facilitating automated compliance, predictions, and simulations, so organizations can look further into the future – and be ready for it.
• Cohesion across processes is increasing. When the data ecosystem is connected enterprise-wide, unified insights are both possible – and actionable.

Generating value from intelligent analytics

Many organizations nowadays, often in partnership with knowledgeable and experienced service providers, are working to connect their data and to make their analytics intelligent, accessible, and tailored to individual requirements. When this happens, data evolves into something much more useful: it becomes actionable information.
The steps organizations could typically take are as follows:

• Identify high-value data – designing services and processes to foster insights and automate processes effectively.
• Connect and collect data – building robust and scalable ecosystems for automation collection.
• Design guiding principles – creating a solid foundation by establishing ground rules for data access, user experience, usage, security, sustainability, and ethical issues.
• Synchronize processes and systems – increasing system and data interconnectivity to facilitate source sharing and to ensure alignment with process designs, to boost performance and compliance.
• Connect real and digital workers – developing an analytics approach that brings disparate business processes together, including not just people but ERP systems and RPA-based routines.
• Active data with CXO templates – embedding data and insights into core processes that are aligned with CXO personas, their roles, and their information needs.
• Unlock actionable insights – achieving data value with self-service analytics, generative comments, interactive visuals, and built-in process automation triggers.
• Foster a data and improvement culture – deploying data-powered practices with automated compliance checks to guide a change in organizational culture and to ensure the impact of actioned insights are successful over the long term.

A comprehensive approach to driving actionable insights

It’s possible to develop a comprehensive approach that brings together people, processes, and technology, and that addresses the challenges with which this article began.

The graphic below shows typical constituent elements, the facilities they provide, and the C-suite roles the entire model serves.

The concentric circles demonstrate the logic of it. The connectivity of data gives it context, and this in turn means it evolves into intelligence. Connected and contextualized intelligence is no longer data – it’s information, and with the right tools, and when tailored to meet the strategic needs of the right people, it’s actionable.

When everything is connected in this way, advanced and automated insights mean users will have the flexibility to predict and simulate before committing to new courses of action. If they want to, they will be able to replace hundreds of dashboards and reports with a single, unified monitoring and governance platform – but the insight emphasis can nonetheless be weighted in individual cases to suit the information needs of different users.

What’s more, this web of connectivity not only increases synchronicity and facilitates insight – it also reduces data replication across the enterprise.

Delivering outcomes that meet persona needs

How might this intelligent, connected approach to analytics be adapted to meet the expectations of different senior players in the organization?

A CFO needs comprehensive and integrated insights into revenue growth; risk and reputation; margin improvement; and working capital optimizations. An intelligent and unified approach can reduce costs, increase revenue, improve compliance, and release cash.

A CSCO or a CPO needs a 360 view of inventory, procurement, logistics and transportation, and order management. A smart, cohesive approach can reduce costs, improve service levels, and improve cash flow.

A chief marketing officer needs in-depth, immediate, and comprehensive knowledge of consumer insights, marketing insights, and contact center analytics. An intelligent, unified solution can improve revenue, reduce costs, reduce time-to-market, and deliver an improved customer experience.

And how might this approach to intelligent business insights deliver a tangible difference?

Business outcomes include improvement in cash allocation through optimizing payment terms and accounts receivables balance, and a reduction in the cost of goods sold by optimizing aged purchase orders and direct spend reduction. Some real-world examples that we’ve helped deliver at Capgemini include:

• Optimizing working capital by 5% and achieving savings of $38 million across the procure-to-pay process, through implementing AI-enabled data processing and tailored CXO insights for a major industrial chemical products company
• Reducing reporting turnaround time by 80% and accelerating the speed to improvement by 95%, through modernizing the analytics estate and introducing a new insights governance model for a leading pharmaceutical services business
• Reducing the marketing services costs by 35% and optimizing and integrating more than 1,000 reports, through introducing customer voice analytics and setting up a managed insights service for a global consumer products organization.

Delivering game-changing, actionable value

What these examples demonstrate is that when everything is brought together in an intelligent solution that assesses significance relative to the needs of the organization, or to the needs of specific roles within the organization – that’s when data stops being data, and becomes not just information, but actionable information.

Game-changing information, in fact. Information that delivers genuine value, and significant business outcomes.

This article is published in the new edition of our Innovation Nation magazine. Read more from our special feature on “Automation and the data-powered organization” and download the full magazine.