{"id":245472,"date":"2019-06-23T23:55:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-24T06:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&#038;p=245472"},"modified":"2025-05-29T14:50:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-29T21:50:16","slug":"making-sure-your-organization-is-data-driven","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/making-sure-your-organization-is-data-driven","title":{"rendered":"Making Sure Your Organization Is Data Driven"},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10582,171,11022],"tags":[47352,157412,192782,278902,311],"arcnews_issues":[362452],"class_list":["post-245472","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arcgis-insights","category-education","category-thought-leader","tag-customer-engagement","tag-data","tag-data-analysis","tag-data-science","tag-data-driven","arcnews_issues-summer-2019","arcnews_sections-gis-people"],"acf":{"short_description":"What does it mean to be data driven? How can an organization build a culture that\u2019s galvanized by data?","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Most organizations only use a small amount of their data\u2019s analytic potential, according to a December 2018 report by research and advisory firm Gartner. But leveraging data\u2014and being data driven\u2014is essential to creating a sustainable advantage over the competition.\r\n\r\nSo what does it mean to be data driven? And how can an organization build a culture that\u2019s galvanized by data, where employees use data and analytics to drive growth, profitability, and innovation?\r\n\r\nA data-driven organization does two things really well. First, it understands that data is a valuable asset. Second, it empowers employees at every organizational level with the access, knowledge, and tools they need to use that data to turn business insights into actionable opportunities.\r\n\r\nMany companies attempt to develop a data-driven culture by employing a highly skilled and creative data science team that works with volumes of data and puts together related reports that, all too often, fail to get acted on. Following a data strategy like this\u2014that relies heavily on a data science team\u2014usually ends in failure. While these experts are highly qualified to generate the data and reports that enable analysis, a stand-alone data science team does very little to build a company-wide culture of data-driven decision-making.\r\n\r\nWhy is that? According to the Gartner report, entitled <em>Predicts 2019: Analytics and BI Strategy<\/em>, it\u2019s because the data science team doesn\u2019t tell stories that are persuasive or even visible to decision-makers. Often, decision-makers lack the knowledge and tools they need to analyze the data. In turn, the data science team lacks the skills required to clearly communicate how an analytic report could translate into business process improvements that increase revenue, reduce costs, or otherwise drive innovation.\r\n\r\nMoreover, the demand for data scientists is outpacing the number of college graduates who study data science or data analytics, according to a recent Gallup poll. And there is a large gap between the number of data analysts who have the functional knowledge (e.g., in marketing or operations management) needed to translate data into real business insights that are actionable, found a report by job market analytics company Burning Glass Technologies.\r\n\r\nWhat can leaders do about all this? Well, they should certainly be asking themselves the following two questions:\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>What tools should I buy for my employees to use to make data-driven decisions?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>How do I scale my workforce\u2019s analytical abilities through higher education and training?<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nFortunately, as the Gartner report explains, the availability of easy-to-use analytics software is on the rise. Now, with programs such as Insights for ArcGIS, performing data analysis simply takes a few clicks of the mouse or taps on a screen rather than full-fledged computer programming skills. This is giving rise to a new role that Gartner calls the \u201ccitizen data scientist\u201d\u2014someone within an organization who can execute analyses that, just a few years ago, would have required a highly experienced data scientist.\r\n\r\nAdditionally, it is now easier than ever for organizations to grow their employees\u2019 data analytics skills\u2014thus enabling more of them to become data citizen scientists. Increasingly, organizations are encouraging (and often paying for) staff to take online classes and participate in certificate programs that teach them how to access data and use analytic tools to solve complex business issues and social problems.\r\n\r\nBrandman University, where I am provost, has been recognized by its accreditor as a data-driven organization, particularly in academic affairs. We have the tools\u2014and several of us at various levels have developed the skills we need\u2014to conduct market-focused spatial analysis. To do this, my colleagues and I start with the big picture, presented in a story map, that allows us to then take a deep dive into the data itself to solve problems or identify opportunities."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":245522,"image_position":"right","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"For instance, when we were developing our product marketing strategy for Brandman\u2019s online graduate nursing program for fall 2019, we learned anecdotally that this program was growing on the East Coast due to referrals from current students and recent graduates who were living there. But two things were unclear: whether these referrals were concentrated in particular locations on the East Coast and, if so, whether any clusters of referrals were large enough to warrant targeted marketing campaigns.\r\n\r\nUsing Insights, Brandman\u2019s associate vice chancellor of marketing operations\u2014who is not a data scientist\u2014mapped our online nursing program application data. He was able to identify significant clusters of applicants in and around Washington, DC; Atlanta, Georgia; and Houston, Texas (in addition to Southern California, which makes sense because our home campus is in Orange County, California). This location intelligence told us that we needed to focus some significant marketing efforts in these locations. As a result, for fall 2019, we are taking two new marketing approaches. First, we are testing a limited-time referral scholarship to see if that can augment referrals in these areas. Second, we are targeting major health-care employers in these markets for our partnership program, which provides incentives to them to create a cohort of employees (nurses) to start and complete Brandman\u2019s online nursing program as a group.\r\n\r\nClearly, GIS is a powerful tool to use for data-driven storytelling. For Brandman, having a heat map that showed where our online nursing program applicants were located was a persuasive and visible indicator that we needed to develop a targeted marketing and referral campaign to harness these opportunities. For other organizations, GIS can help manage assets in real time, execute enterprise resource planning (ERP), and understand complex relationships.\r\n\r\nAdditionally, with the rise of 5G technology alongside the Internet of Things (IoT), Brandman\u2019s business advisory council believes that the convergence of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/location-intelligence\/overview\">location intelligence<\/a> and data science will progress even more. In my opinion, GIS will be the driving force in the 5G revolution, with the two technologies transforming the way we conduct business, operate government bodies, and live our personal lives.\r\n\r\nDigital transformation like this is a great opportunity, as James McCormick, a principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, pointed out on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/podcast\/overview\"><em>Esri &amp; The Science of Where<\/em> podcast<\/a>.\r\n\r\n\u201cLocation\u2014and context in particular\u2014is really powerful for the way we understand our businesses and our customers, and that\u2019s really fueling interest in spatial and location technologies,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nVery few companies are actually leveraging data and analytics to gain a competitive advantage, though, McCormick added. By 2021, however, Forrester projects that having an insights-driven business strategy will be the norm.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe need to embrace insights at scale,\u201d McCormick said, \u201cso we need to have data and analytics technologies that deliver strategic value.\u201d\r\n\r\nThat is what GIS can offer. By combining asset information or ERP data with GIS, organizations can uncover insights and opportunities that simply weren\u2019t visible before. And with the global geographic information available from Esri via ArcGIS Online and ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, the opportunities to enhance data are remarkable.\r\n\r\nBut when it comes to filling growing skills gaps\u2014between analyzing data and using it to drive growth, profitability, and innovation, for example\u2014organizations need to stop focusing on hiring this expertise and start training their current workforce, as additional research from Gartner shows.\r\n\r\nSo how can your company scale staff skills and develop a data-driven culture? By not cordoning off data so it\u2019s the sole responsibility of a data science team and instead empowering more people\u2014from managers to marketing professionals\u2014to use GIS and other data analytic tools to make impactful decisions."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"For more information about Brandman and its undergraduate GIS programs (a bachelor of arts in spatial social sciences and a certificate in GIS use for nonprofit organizations), as well as its graduate programs (a master of business administration in business intelligence and data analytics and a master of GIS and data analytics), visit the Brandman University website.","snippet":""}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Making Sure Your Organization Is Data Driven<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What does it mean to be data driven? 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