Business Transformation: A Roadmap for Maximizing Organizational Insights

CHAPTER 4

Foundational Organizations: Making the Leap to an Enterprise-Wide Approach

What we've learned so far: Challenged organizations stuck at the Individual or Department levels face multiple hurdles when it comes to developing and using information to help the organization succeed. Individual Level organizations are so focused on immediate tactical needs that they rarely operate strategically. Departmental Level organizations often use information in sophisticated ways, but that information is used to make the department perform better without consideration for the organization as a whole. There is never “one version of the truth.” Instead, there are multiple silos and competing versions of the truth.

Will you be in business in five years? Organizations at the Challenged Levels can't say that with certainty. Given the increasing level of market and product competitiveness, improvements in communications and online selling, and the ease with which consumers can research products, organizations must integrate their data across the enterprise to compete aggressively. There is no magic in reaching the Enterprise Level, as you'll learn. It is about building a foundation from which you can develop accurate and consistent enterprise information and can better deploy predictive analytics, big data advances, and optimization techniques in highly competitive and innovative ways.