Anyone can increase ROI by democratizing data (or democratizing analytics).
In fact, nearly 2x the amount of high-performing companies report having data accessible across their entire organization compared to low-performing companies.
That same study reported that revenue at high-performing companies was 3% higher than previous years, too. Of course, every company starts at a different place. No matter where you start, though, there are four critical things you need to do to see success.
Set Organizational KPIs for Increasing ROI
When you set KPIs for increasing ROI, you’re naturally setting goals your company can organize efforts around.
Perhaps your organization is trying to increase revenue by 10% over the next year. Maybe you want to see an uplift in sales by 5%.
Whatever your goal, it should help your organization set objectives during your data democratization journey, including what data your organization would need to achieve this goal.
If you’re looking for time-tested KPIs that deliver results, you can use this resource: 5 Data and Analytics KPIs Every Executive Should Track.
Develop Analytic Skill Sets for Increasing ROI
Even with the right KPIs in place, you still need to make sure your team has the analytic skill sets to use, analyze, and interpret the data to deliver on ROI.
But that can be challenging. Analytic skills that best lead to increasing revenue include:
- Advanced Analytics
- Data Science
- Machine Learning
- AI
Your organization might not be equipped to handle those advanced forms of analytics because you’re lacking one or more needs, such as the analytic talent, the budget to hire talent, and the analytic tools and platforms to perform advanced analytics.
Before you start investing in training, hiring, or new analytic platforms, you should perform a skills gap analysis. This will help you understand:
- Existing talent gaps
- How much training is needed
- Team members who could help facilitate training
Making a skills matrix can be time-consuming, so we have one you can use to start. It includes options for both individual assessments and an individual and manager assessment combined.
After everyone completes their assessment, the Results tab for each automatically sorts everyone into groups based on the level you target for training.
Invest in Developmental Resources
Training your current talent, or upskilling them, can help you meet your ROI goals while building a team that can help you later.
Upskilling provide employees with a chance to learn new skills, gain promotions, earn higher pay. It provides you with a chance to obtain the talent you need to deliver on current goals while retaining people with company and industry knowledge for future objectives.
Most organizations turn to hiring to address skills gaps before upskilling. However, as you can see in the graph below, the gap between hiring and training is narrowing.
Source: Beyond hiring: How companies are reskilling to address talent gaps
There are plenty of resources available online you can use to upskill your staff. You can even develop one yourself.
If you have Alteryx Designer, we have the Alteryx Academy and Alteryx Community you can use to help train employees at your organization.
Understand Your Company’s Analytics Maturity
Your analytics maturity serves as the foundation to everything your company can do with its data.
No matter how talented your team is, and no matter what KPIs you set, if your analytics maturity is lacking, your team will struggle to meet its goals.
According to McKinsey, “companies that effectively harness analytics in service to marketing and sales performance are 1.5 times more likely to achieve above-average growth rates than their competitors.”
They do that by pairing their analytics teams with the “right data tools to facilitate faster decision making and to foster capabilities and execution.”
Knowing your organization’s analytics maturity can help you pinpoint what steps you need to take next to best support your democratization efforts to increase ROI.
Conclusion
Democratization can help you increase ROI, but your efforts need to be successful. By setting KPIs, upskilling teams, supporting learning, and increasing your organizational analytics maturity, you can set your company on the best path to growth.
Assess Your Organization’s Analytics Maturity
We have an analytics maturity assessment you can take that comes with the bonus of a personalized report that shows how you compare among your peers.