Leveraging Your Data-Driven Business

The best businesses in the world leverage data and analytics to improve internal and external business operations. With help from a data-driven business management software like Align, you too can capitalize on big data to achieve your biggest goals faster. 

Data and analytics have become the bedrock for successful businesses worldwide, with a 99% adoption rate among fortune 1000 businesses. The volume of raw data is growing exponentially, and accessing this data is no longer limited to those willing to spend a pretty penny.

With the global pandemic creating even more uncertainty for small and medium-sized business owners, many are turning to big data and predictive analytics to help guide the way.

There are endless ways to incorporate data into your business, from improving internal operations to creating better customer interactions and improving your core products and services. With the right approach and strategic adoption across the company, data can help you improve internal and external business operations to build a strong future for your business.

Be like the Big Guys – Some Examples of Data-Driven Success

Fortune 500 companies have historically had the upper hand when it came to leveraging data. Because of their early adoption efforts, these businesses offer critical insights into the remarkable ways data and analytics can transform a business.

From Google’s complex SERPs to Facebook’s personalized ads, data collection and insights have become a core revenue stream for many corporations. But their use of data doesn’t live solely as a revenue stream. Instead, many of these organizations owe their success to using data as a tool to drive business decisions and product development.

Take Netflix, for example. Their use of predictive analytics to create customized “viewer recommendations” drives 75% of their customer’s activity on the platform. By analyzing user-generated data, they can accurately predict the success of a new show or movie and create tailored trailers to draw in a broader audience.

On the other hand, Microsoft draws on big data to help transform their internal operations. For example, they mine insights from various data sources to tailor their sales processes and create more favorable outcomes. Even AT&T uses data to improve their customer care operations.

It seems one of the keys to creating a successful organization is to embed data and analytics into your internal and external business processes. But how do you do that?

Using Data to Reach Customers

47% of business data users are leveraging the data to help improve interactions with customers. And luckily, you don’t need custom software and a team of computer scientists to start leveraging data in your business. Instead, the easiest way to begin is to start with analytics software that does a lot of the heavy lifting for you.

Software like Google Analytics and Facebook for Business can give you great insights into how your customers interact with you through different channels like your website, socials, or sales teams. By leveraging this information, you can begin to hone your marketing and sales efforts to meet your customers where they’re at and build stronger relationships using customized content and ads.

You can also utilize tons of research-based software to learn more about your industry and evaluate trends outside your internal customer base. This information can help contextualize what’s happening in your business and help you identify industry-wide patterns you can capitalize on.

Using Data for Your Internal Team

A recent survey from Sisense shows that 45% of businesses using data are using it to predict business outcomes, and 55% are using it to improve efficiency in their business.

That’s because leveraging internal data can help improve your internal team, as well as your external efforts. For example, you can use data to identify under-performing departments and help those teams refocus on the right priorities.

One of the main reasons Microsoft says data helped transform their sales team is that it helped free data from silos and allowed for better cross-team collaboration. This culture of transparency, where every team member has access to essential data, helps encourage collaboration that opens to door to efficient problem solving and better customer experiences.

But data and insights on their own are not enough to improve your business. You need company-wide implementation.

Overcoming Setbacks: Data-Driven Success Starts With the Right Software 

According to Global surveys from Mckinsey & Company, buy-in and organization-wide adoption are some of the biggest reported roadblocks to implementing analytics efforts. But successful businesses know that the key to implementing a winning data strategy is proper management and sharing of that data.

As Mckinsey insights shares in their research, “Company leaders must continually articulate the importance of analytics by hosting town-hall meetings, monitoring results on company dashboards, and incentivizing senior managers to focus on these initiatives.”

At Align, we help business owners just like you organize your teams around the data essential to your business.

As a data-driven project-management software, we emphasize crucial metrics by keeping them front and center. With easy-to-access data at your teams’ fingertips, they can spend less time tracking and managing data and more time acting on valuable insights.

With the help of…

• Data-centered “huddles” that keep meetings focused on what matters,
• Metric-driven performance management tools to keep your team members on track, and
• Outcome-focused strategic planning tools to help drive your business forward,

…our software can help you achieve your big goals faster.

Check out our success stories to learn how other business owners take advantage of our software.