What does it mean to be ‘insights driven’?

With the demand for technology and insight-driven solutions on the rise, the pressure on organisations using data to remain competitive increases. Businesses can use a combination of current and historical data, combined with technology to improve their business functions and reduce time and cost. This guide explains what a data and insights-driven approach is, how to become insights driven and its advantages.

Being insights-driven as an organisation is considering data, analysis and logical reasoning into the decision-making process on a daily basis.

Becoming insights-driven can be a hugely important step for companies of all sizes, however they must understand the fundamentals of how to get there and ultimately stay there.

If you were to look at becoming insights driven from a real-life example, you would look at how plastic is made. Polymers are taken to a factory and get transformed into plastic which can be used for a magnitude of different things. This is the same as analytical data. Companies take in data which can be analysed, from this analysis insight can be formed to make better decisions, this is insights-driven.

If your company has decided to make the transition to become more insights-driven, there are many variables which will need to be overcome first. Firstly, although technology is a necessary requirement to crunch the data, successful insights-driven organisations require many further components.

It is important that organisations have a clear strategy on what the vision is. Without direction, the data won’t work well together and could end up being a waste of time and money. A good strategy will include stakeholder management, innovation and value drivers.

Although technology is a key factor, technical people are required to help setup the process to gain the vital insights. This could be business analysis, accountants or even data scientists.

An organisation will need talented employees with leadership qualities to take the insights to form a clear action plan and implement it into the organisation.

Quick thinking, bright employees will be able to make important decisions, which could lead to a successful transition.

Organisations must be entirely transparent when using data and provide data sources for any external data. The data being used must have quality checks and be from a trusted source to avoid fake data which would implement success or worse, become a legal case.

All data must be ethical and shared and comply with all regulations. Organisations can use third party data to aid in becoming insights assisted, but they must not abuse the use of third-party data.

The process needs to be scalable and agile to be able to adapt to change. It is also important within the process to be able to identify which parts need to be prioritised. Governance of the process is key to enable the technology algorithms to learn from previous data and predict future data more accurately. Finally, process re-engineering will allow companies to map their current strategy, identify holes and look how to improve them with cutting-edge mapping.

The technology needed to be insights driven is powered by a complex algorithm with the ability to learn over time. Organisations can use technology from providers such as BOSCO, which are secure, reliable and continuous.

• Build upon existing competitive advantage from historical data.
• Produce insights that predict future trends.
• Convert the growing amount of data into quantifiable business value.
• The decision-making process speed and cost will be significantly reduced.
• The organisation culture will be adapted to becoming more data and insights driven.
• Insight-driven decisions will be brought to an employee level as a collective rather than being stuck at executive level.
• The organisations agility will be improved to navigate the rapidly changing digital industry.
• Organisations can build up their overall analytics capabilities, from integrating all levels such as the workflows and systems, to the core business systems.

BOSCO™’s unparalleled forecasting capabilities can help you make better, data-driven decisions with your media budgets. Our easy-to-use interface provides a single source of truth, enabling you to track and implement for optimal performance across all your marketing channels. Book a demo to find out more.