You’ve identified the problems with your data situation and set goals for how you want to use your data. Now the rubber hits the road. It’s time to build a data strategy. Whatever the size of your organisation, there are five key components that must feature in a robust data strategy. Here they are.

1. Identify

This component is concerned with establishing business use cases for how the data will be used, identifying data sources – internal and external, creating agreed and consistent terminology across the business and ensuring accuracy. There are few things worse than, for example, a sales team that defines its customers in a different way to the finance department. Until there’s alignment on the classic ‘what is a customer’ question both departments will continually disagree on the numbers.

2. Provide

The role of data provision is to ensure that data is created and shared with everybody within an organisation according to their needs and responsibilities. There are four main elements. Data packaging sets standards for sharing data. Data stewardship establishes how data will be shared between systems and users Data interfaces focuses on the tools different users will be given to process and use the data. Access & security is concerned with who gets what data – and how it remains secure within the business.

3. Store

Storage is focused on how data is tracked and managed within an organisation. The thing about data is that there’s a lot of it, it’s continually expanding and storage doesn’t come free. Where and how data is stored will depend upon the amount you have – and the amount you expect to have in the short and medium term.

4. Integrate

To get the most value from data it needs to be integrated. If we think of a data point as a single piece of a jigsaw we get to see the big picture only when all the individual pieces are linked together. You get a much better view of business performance when finance, commercial and operational data are combined together.

5. Govern

The more data you have the more it becomes necessary to have data governance. This involves setting standards or policies for how data is collected, stored, processed, and disposed of. Data governance also determines who can access what kinds of data.

To discuss how to build your data strategy, get in touch via info@theifactory.com or give us a call +44 (0)20 3858 9655. We look forward to hearing from you.