Teradata Universe: Six Ways Data Can Make Your Business A Digital Leader

Data management

Of course, a key thing to remember is that not all data is equal. Certain pieces will be of more value to a business than others, so it all needs to be managed effectively to ensure that the business focus is in the right place.

“The reality is if you really want to drive value out of data, you need to integrate it,” Bisgaard-Bohr explained, citing sensor data from connected components as a prime example: “Sensor data in of itself is mostly gibberish because there’s so much of it, so you need to correlate it to something different.”

It might be maintenance records, finance systems or HR systems, but for this type of data more detail needs to be provided. “The more data you can integrate, the richer the dataset and the better the answer will be.”

The “billion-dollar opportunity” won’t be present in every dataset, but by effectively managing and integrating the different types of data collected, the high-value information can be leveraged.

Innovation

I know what you’re thinking; experiment and innovate are pretty much the same thing but, according to Bisgaard-Bohr, there is a difference.

“The difference between experimentation and innovation is experimentation is by nature open ended. You don’t really know the strategy, whereas innovation says companies want to think about how they are going to use that data.”

Essentially, with innovation there is a specific reason behind what you are doing. Businesses might want to focus internally or externally, be after incremental or exponential improvements, but the key is that there is a goal in mind.

The likes of Netflix and Uber are perfect examples. They used data to totally transform specific industries and used innovation to create new business models that had never been seen before and that others have struggled to compete with.

Focus on the customer

This final characteristic is one that is “often overlooked” by businesses. “I speak to a lot of B2B companies and I tell them, what you can learn from Amazon, from Google, from Facebook is not so much the data side of things but the focus on the customer,” Bisgaard-Bohr said.

It’s a consideration that is often spoken about in parallel to technology, but still doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.

By focusing on the customer and creating services that reduce things like friction and costs while increasing factors such as simplicity and convenience, businesses can create better value for customers then generate loyalty.

Quiz: The world of big data analytics