Are you collecting data, but don’t know what to do with it? Feeling overwhelmed at the thought of trying to analyse everything? Get ready for a breakthrough that will change your business for the better.
More and more businesses are investing in digital transformation – using technology to create or improve the business model. According to KPMG Australia‘s recent Data and Digital Transformation in the Mid Market Report 2021, this is driven by the desire to improve customer experience, maximise productivity and reduce costs.
While the report found that many medium to larger businesses store large amounts of data, it’s often an unused asset with a multitude of disparate sources.
The overall takeaway? No amount of investment into complex digital technologies will be successful unless you have access to real-time, integrated data.
How to use data in business so it actually works
For more than 100 years, Kodak dominated the photographic film market. But from the late 1990s it ignored data showing that more consumers were moving away from film towards digital and was quickly eclipsed by its rivals.
Don’t be like Kodak.
Even with the best of intentions, businesses today can easily fall into that trap of ‘data paralysis’, where even the thought of trying to collate and analyse it all just feels overwhelming. Like a jigsaw puzzle where you’ve got the pieces, but don’t know how to connect them together into one picture that makes sense.
The first step is to start thinking about data in a different way. Instead of an unwieldy mass of disparate algorithms and numbers hidden somewhere in complicated systems, realise it’s a valuable asset to your business.
“Your data is one of the best assets you have,” says Darren Covington, Lead Partner of Technology Integration, Enterprise at KPMG Australia.
“Data is the insight into your growth. If you’re trying to understand what you’ve done well or not, you refer to data to ensure that what you’ve done in the past relates to how you improve in the future.
“If you’re doing something really well, how do you improve it? If you’re doing something really badly, how do you quantify it? And how do you then look at remediation plans or changes in direction to drive your business forward?”
Changes in buying patterns, consumption and transient marketplaces mean that businesses must connect with their customers even more, understand their current wants and needs and anticipate their future ones. Data is the key to gaining this awareness.
“Social media is a massive source of information these days,” explains Darren. “It doesn’t matter what age you are, you’re targeted by data insights into your behaviours, trends and likes. So businesses need to figure out how to use this as a competitive advantage. If I’m going to buy a car, a car dealership needs to know why I’m buying a new car. If they can see that I’m also interested in a larger house, it may be that I’m having more children.
“They also know we have a Labrador. These data-driven insights mean the car dealership can tailor their marketing to attract me to buy the car they want to sell to me which would also be the best fit for me. You’re driving efficiency, which optimises profitability.”
Connecting your silos of data for real-time insights
Now you’ve reframed how you think about data, you need to be able to consume it in a way that’s easy to understand to allow you to make decisions to drive your business forward.
Many businesses can have several hundred applications and systems in place, all gathering data independently. But they don’t necessarily work with each other, which means you can’t get a clear picture of how your business is running.
“Integrating data gives you an end-to-end insight into your consumer, or into the business model that you’re driving,” says Darren. “So for example, how do you actually get to understand the cost to serve a client? You need to integrate all of the touch points of the client’s journey to understand the true cost to service them.”
This is where a managed service can help. The process starts with working with a business to figure out your goals and understand how you operate.
The KPMG team then takes all the static information sitting in your current applications, connects it all together, extracts the data and sets up automated processes. It’s then converted into an easy-to-understand visual model of real-time insights that you can view via a simple dashboard.
What happens if you don’t integrate your data properly?
Here’s a current example of why having integrated, real-time data insights is so important.
During COVID-19 more people wanted to buy bikes. But while many bikes are made in Australia, spare parts such as batteries and electronics typically come from Taiwan, China, Europe and the US. They also contain carbon which has been hard to source, so parts were not being manufactured. This resulted in a shortage of bikes in 2021, a six-month waiting list for eager customers and a dent in bike retailers’ income.
According to Darren, valuable insights from data could have averted this situation. “Bike manufacturers could have scrutinised their production chains during the first wave of COVID, seen the rise in sales, increased their scale of manufacturing and ordered more raw materials earlier,” he says.
It’s clear then that leveraging your data has the potential to enrich your business model. “It’s about taking the time to know what’s going on in your business,” says Darren. “And the only way that you can really understand that is to drill into what’s taking place.”
Find out more about how KPMG Enterprise can help you make the most of your data and turn it into a valuable asset to drive profits in your business here.
Watch Kochie’s Business Builders: It’s Never Too Late To Be a Starter with Data
This article is brought to you by Kochie’s Business Builders in partnership with KPMG Australia.
Trending
Weekly business news and insights, delivered to your inbox.