CEO Today Magazine September 2019 Edition

www.ceotodaymagazine.com 28 SPECIAL FEATURE Steve Whiting, COO of Agile Solutions GB LTD, looks at why a data management culture offers huge opportunities to businesses. The business landscape has completely changed in a short period of time owing to the fast-paced integration of technology solutions that have come with the digital age. Due to this change, our personal lives have also changed – we interact with companies in a more seamless manner and our experiences with brands are different. As such businesses operating across both B2B and B2C worlds now have a golden asset that is often not being used to its full potential: data. Data has been heralded as the new gold by some influential figures, including the CEO of Siemens. As people start to scratch the surface of what data can do it’s going to become clearer that the investment in data will bring many returns that ensure your business can transform, survive and thrive. What can data do for you? Through my experience many companies are currently doing data management well. They have good analytic solutions and robust, secure storage to prevent it become vulnerable to attacks. However, it typically doesn’t go beyond this and herein lies the missed opportunity. Data is a hugely valuable tool that can help companies grow by identifying new services, trends, respond and adjust quickly and it can also be sold to third parties as a ‘side hustle’. In fact, the element of the third- party buying data is something that many companies should be looking at as a way of generating income for data they have available to generate additional revenue and enhance their offering. For example, a car manufacturer could share GPS data with weather companies to make for accurate, real time weather information. Data management shouldn’t just be looking at analytics but should shift towards real time reporting that provides a business with agility to respond quickly. This will be hugely important for many companies as they face an unknown future with Brexit. It also means that responding to an unforeseen need or situation is able to happen quickly. Data can also help drive Is a Data Management Culture the Key to Growth in 2019?