Knack for data boosts firms’ resilience, profits by 10%

The most data-savvy companies are increasing profits by 9.5%, are 2.9 times more likely to beat the competition to market, and are twice as likely to exceed financial expectations, according to a report from Splunk.

These are from findings of global survey was conducted from May through June 2022 in partnership with the Enterprise Strategy Group. Respondents include 2,000 IT, security and business leaders were drawn from nine countries including Australia, France, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The report defines leaders as organisations that have achieved excellence in the six key areas of data classification, aggregation, quality, analysis skills, analysis tools and monitoring. 

Findings show that data leaders report launching nine new products per year that wouldn’t be possible without their data innovation capabilities, compared to the beginner’s average of three new products per year. 

They are also more likely to report that applying data innovation to sales, marketing and customer service/support has contributed to increasing customer lifetime value (49%, versus 30% of beginners). In addition, data leaders are more resilient and quicker to identify and remediate security incidents by 11%.

Also, data leaders are 5.7 times as likely to say their organisation almost always makes better decisions than competitors. They are 4.5 times as likely to believe their organisation is in a very strong position to compete and succeed in their markets over the next few years.

Further, data leaders are proactively operationalising and monetising their data. They have operationalised 38% more of their data assets while also deriving 2.3 times as much of their revenue via data monetisation.

“Data-driven innovation gives you a massive edge,” said Ammar Maraqa, chief strategy officer, Splunk. “Organisations that prioritise investments in collecting and using their data have full visibility into their digital systems and business performance, which makes it easier to adapt and respond to disruptions, security threats and changing market conditions.”

Despite the high demand for data innovation adoption, organisations in Singapore are still trying to harness the power of data to drive business growth or reshape how they do things today. 

To counter the global talent shortage, organisations are required to focus on internal reskilling while looking for talents with data skills.

In Singapore, 85% of organisations rated the importance of uncovering and better operationalising data as one of their top 10 priorities, and 65% shared that data has helped them make better decisions faster compared to their peers. Firms are said to have benefitted the most from customer data (31%) and Financial data (29%). 

Over 60% of respondents also shared that at least 20% of the organisation’s total revenue comes from its data-driven services and products.

When it comes to innovating with data, 34% of companies responded that it’s hard to coordinate all the teams needed to advance an idea, and 37% shared that data does not have the quality or format to support innovation practices.

Also, 68% of organisations also shared that retaining individuals with the desired data-centric skills has been challenging.

To address the situation, organisations in Singapore have taken steps toward training and nurturing talents that help drive data innovation (15%), placing more emphasis on increased data-centric training/certifications (55%).