HFS Data Viewpoint: Data-driven decision making is a top 3 priority and has become essential for future survival across industries

One of our recent studies, surveying 600 Global 2000 enterprises, found that data and analytics is now considered ‘essential for future survival’ by 21% of firms. Looking at the trends across industry verticals is fascinating. When asked why they’re investing in emerging technologies, the majority of industries consider the improvement of decision making abilities as a top 3 objective. Financial services, insurance, healthcare, hi-tech, telecom, media, and energy and utilities are particularly thinking ahead. Travel, logistics, and hospitality, arguably the hardest hit industry by the pandemic, is still investing in emerging technologies, and considering improved decision making as a #4 priority.

What this cross-industry chart shows us, then, is that the need for data-driven decision making is being felt almost equally across businesses.

In the post-pandemic environment, businesses need rapid and secure access to high-quality data to make informed decisions, whether it’s a marketing leader running campaigns in a hi-tech firm, or a supply chain manager evaluating inventory requirements in retail. As we start to redesign business processes to be more automated and focus our workforces on more strategic activities, they are going to undeniably need more insight to be able to make critical decisions that impact operational and financial performance, and customer operations.

The Bottom-Line: Enterprises across most industries are seeking decision making support from a variety of emerging technology investments, meaning the days of underutilizing data have got to be numbered.

We all know data is an important asset for business, and our recent studies have started to show that enterprises that have better data proficiencies ultimately outperform their competitors. At HFS, we talk about the OneOffice that drives better customer and employee experience, and creates better internal alignment across departments. Data is the strategy for building the OneOffice organization, and the ability to access real-time data that can elevate decision making for critical business processes is the only way to get there. As the data management leader at a financial services shared with us recently, “We can feel the disruption coming for our industry, but to achieve it, we’ll need to embed analytics everywhere, have smart automation, and use our data as a competitive advantage.”