We're at a tipping point for data-driven decision-making, and we're at that point for a few different reasons. The first reason is that many organizations have realized how important data is to their decision-making. Certainly, the events of the last 2.5 years have been a major accelerator for digital transformation, the importance of data, and how leveraging data has become a central driver of digital transformation efforts. Similarly, AI and machine learning have been integral in being able to extract insight from various data sources.

An influx of competitive pressure from all angles has certainly played a role in this realization, but firms are also recognizing how much the technology industry has been encroaching into their respective spaces. Whether it’s fintech, regtech, or govtech, technology is permeating business practices across all types of industries.

There's also an increased focus on long-term viability, as organizations and customers alike navigate uncertainty in the markets. Potential regulation of the technology industry feeds into this uncertainty. This concern around regulation relates to how data is handled, secured, and used. All of those elements have created an environment where data is seen as much more important than it was three years ago.

To illuminate perspectives on data-driven decision-making, we conducted our annual Voice of the Enterprise survey among individuals across industries who understand how their organization is using data, AI and analytics. When asked what percentage of their organization’s strategic decisions are data-driven, a little more than 25% said nearly all of their decision are driven by data, while 44% said most are.

We also polled individuals on how important they think data will be in their organization either in the next 12 months or 12 months from now, and 90% of the respondents think that it will be more important. But why is this all important?

When we asked respondents about the benefits they expect to receive from being more data-driven, business agility came first. Improving and automating business processes followed in second, and developing new products and services was third. All three individual answers are valid, but we put them under the banner of resiliency because they're each about sustainably moving an organization forward and leveraging data as they go.

That's not to say there aren't barriers to becoming a data-driven organization. Security invariably comes up when we ask people these kinds of questions. (Think back to the earlier point on regulating how data is stored, shared, and used.) The more firms use data as a strategic asset, the more important security becomes.

Data privacy has become increasingly important in the wake of GDPR and CCPA. Additionally, the integration of new data with existing or legacy data architecture is a major issue for so many organizations, but especially for financial services firms, given the current level of mergers and acquisitions taking place. When you acquire companies, you effectively acquire their systems and data. There's a lot of integration that needs to happen.