Gone are the days when Business Intelligence (BI) meant something powerful for organizations. A BI solution was tantamount to a microscopic view of the business, of its products and/or services: the “best-sellers”, the most profitable, products with potential for consumer acceptance… Those were times of discovery!

The technological evolution of the concept to Analytics carries with it, more recent concepts such as “Real time Analytics”, “Data Lakes”, “Big Data”, “Lake Houses”, where the processing speed, its availability, the diversity of data structure (eg. : unstructured data, such as videos, social networks, audio) and the origin of data sources (e.g. Internet of Things) are so complex and varied that the amount of data and the technological architecture are no longer obstacles for organizations and their IT departments. The challenge lies, in fact, in the treatment of the most important data for the organization, that is, the data that is truly necessary for the business.

Given this new approach, data has become even more crucial for the implementation of organizational strategies, allowing for an immediate X-ray analysis of customer profiles and costs (including partners). This enables businesses to more accurately support any business development strategy.

While this has not been a new concept for decades, business strategies essentially rely on a global vision of their shareholders, the achievement of commercial objectives (tangibility) and in the “How To” strategy, on how to achieve them, either by differentiation in the market, by specialization, or by positioning and a desire to expand with the introduction of new products ; or even by maintaining market share through cost rationalization.

Any strategy is built based on internal data (cost efficiency, sales) and data external to the organization (consumer behavior, market, quotas, among others). In the operationalization of strategies, there is a very strong dependence on data – this is what shapes the entire process. When preparing the strategy, recording the history of sales and costs provides a baseline (Phase 0), incorporating ambition and objectives to be achieved (Phase 1) will enable accurate monitoring and real-time tracking of the attainment of these objectives (Phase 2).

Having said that, there is no doubt that data is the most important and real fuel in all the implementation phases of your company’s strategy. For a manager, it is evident that the achievement of strategic objectives does not solely depend on an objective component supported by data; there is a whole human and motivational component that gives life to its execution and therefore there is a subjective side surrounding the implementation of the strategy. However, and even so, there must be mechanisms, also supported by data, that provide visibility and enable close involvement of the management team. For example, implementing visually appealing and modern dashboards on mobile devices can engage all levels of management, from middle management to top-level management.

Lastly, communication to the entire organization regarding strategy and data, associated with different levels of access to information (applying data security), can be supported by the development of a corporate purpose portal, enabling 360 degree engagement.

In short, data is not just support for decision-making regarding current business operations, but it is crucial to support business strategies in all stages of the life cycle: from definition to implementation, enabling activation of shareholders’ ambition and strategy together with operational teams and with a speed, comprehensiveness and accuracy that are aligned with the demands of customers and markets.