How can we unlock the true potential of data?

Data is often described as the ‘new oil’, but it’s way more pre­cious than that. And, unlike fos­sil fuel, the more you use it, the more you get back. Data is the future pow­er source of the glob­al econ­o­my, but its evo­lu­tion is fraught with chal­lenges. 

Now is the per­fect time, then, to hear from a select group of data chiefs for their views on the data oppor­tu­ni­ty – how it can super­charge indus­try, what its lim­i­ta­tions are, and what we must over­come to reach its full poten­tial. 

Get closer to the numbers 

For opti­mal results, organ­i­sa­tions must first under­stand what they have, says Mike Con­naughton, head of ana­lyt­ics and data inno­va­tion, EMEA, Ora­cle. “A lot of organ­i­sa­tions are still strug­gling to under­stand how their data under­pins val­ue cre­ation. Research sug­gests that the top quar­tile of busi­ness­es best placed to acquire and use dig­i­tal cap­i­tal are grow­ing expo­nen­tial­ly com­pared with the oth­er three quar­tiles. So, we know that peo­ple who do this well are ben­e­fit­ting, but many are still strug­gling to under­stand how their data under­pins their organ­i­sa­tion. It’s an issue we all have to deal with.” 

What’s clear is that organ­i­sa­tions are invest­ing heav­i­ly to get to grips with the infor­ma­tion at their fin­ger­tips, even those with mature data approach­es honed over three, four, even five decades. “A chal­lenge most organ­i­sa­tions have today is that sys­tems and process­es are not designed to quick­ly and eas­i­ly derive insights,” says Ashish Sur­ti, EVP tech­nol­o­gy and secu­ri­ty at Colt. 

“Our tech­nol­o­gy serves us extreme­ly well for our process­es and cus­tomers, but there are many data entry points. Not every­one ful­ly under­stands that if you enter a piece of data it could get manip­u­lat­ed 15 times before it dri­ves a deci­sion, and then that call could be com­plete­ly wrong. Organ­i­sa­tions must under­stand the true archi­tec­ture of their foot­print and run the basics of what is the source, why it was cap­tured and what is its val­ue.” 

Natal­ie Fish­burn, vice pres­i­dent, glob­al head of clin­i­cal data and insights at AstraZeneca, agrees: “In the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, his­tor­i­cal­ly we have thought about data in terms of each indi­vid­ual prod­uct, less about the breadth of our data and its poten­tial. 

“We have a project hap­pen­ing now to stan­dard­ise our data, which will improve its util­i­ty in clin­i­cal tri­als. For exam­ple, in future, we may be able to sim­u­late tri­al pop­u­la­tions of patients on place­bo (‘sug­ar pill’/inactive treat­ment), so we don’t need as many peo­ple in our tri­als. This is bet­ter for tri­al par­tic­i­pants and gets to the con­clu­sions faster.” 

Building strong foundations 

For Emma Duck­worth, direc­tor of data sci­ence, GSK Con­sumer Health­care, it’s cru­cial to get the basics right: “A data good strat­e­gy has to be aligned with your busi­ness strat­e­gy. So fig­ure out your objec­tives and work back­wards from there. That means clear gov­er­nance and defined data stew­ards, AI and ML stan­dards, as well as a data lit­er­a­cy pro­gramme that starts with lead­er­ship.” 

This is even more impor­tant in a world where the tech­ni­cal oppor­tu­ni­ty out­strips the num­ber of skilled indi­vid­u­als avail­able to run projects. Tris Mor­gan, direc­tor of secu­ri­ty advi­so­ry ser­vices at BT, thinks the answer lies in sim­plic­i­ty. “We’re look­ing at how we can sim­pli­fy process­es and auto­mate them using data insight as the trig­ger point for it all so that we can deploy the most pre­cious bod­ies we have on the park to the high­est val­ue activ­i­ties, while automat­ing eas­i­er things that require less exper­tise.” 

The skills gap and a pro­lif­er­a­tion of data silos are two of the biggest drags of progress in this area; oth­ers include rel­e­van­cy, tech­ni­cal debt and the need for gov­er­nance at the nation­al and inter­na­tion­al lev­el to move with the times, replac­ing com­pli­cat­ed per­mis­sion forms with tan­gi­ble proofs that can build trust. Ashish Sur­ti says: “I don’t think the way we’re doing accep­tance or con­sent is real­ly work­ing. The inten­tion was right when we set out, but now it’s a legal doc­u­ment peo­ple just do not under­stand.” 

In future, it will be cru­cial to democ­ra­tise data and pro­vide users with clear infor­ma­tion allow­ing them to make their own deci­sions on how their infor­ma­tion is used, accord­ing to Doug Brown, chief data sci­en­tist at Capi­ta. “It’s an inter­est­ing fron­tier but also a dif­fi­cult prob­lem to solve because of the restric­tions on cap­ture and use of data. For reg­u­lat­ed indus­tries, it’s fun­da­men­tal to under­stand how you have arrived at a par­tic­u­lar deci­sion and there­fore the eth­i­cal bound­aries, test­ing and trans­paren­cy of the results. 

“We have to prove we don’t want to dis­en­fran­chise, or in any way reduce, people’s access as a result of mov­ing to advanced ana­lyt­ics, AI and ML. Indi­vid­u­als want more con­trol and by work­ing col­lec­tive­ly we can move the dial on social engage­ment and pur­pose.” 

Future opportunities 

If reg­u­la­tors and indus­try can get the bal­ance right then the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less. Natal­ie Fish­burn at AstraZeneca says data appli­ca­tions will get med­i­cines to mar­ket faster and reduce the bur­den on hos­pi­tals, ulti­mate­ly giv­ing peo­ple more time with loved ones. 

Emma Duck­worth at GSK Con­sumer Health­care sim­i­lar­ly sees a move towards self-care, with more in-home treat­ments, low­er reliance on pre­scrip­tions and few­er vis­its to the GP. Tris at BT sees data as a weapon against the com­plex and evolv­ing threat land­scape while Ashish Sur­ti at Colt thinks it will improve sus­tain­abil­i­ty and ben­e­fit old­er gen­er­a­tions. But all agree that the way we acquire, man­age and use data will be fun­da­men­tal to its appli­ca­tion in future, and that there are many ques­tions to answer before we tru­ly wit­ness its opti­mal use. 

“It’s a gift that will keep on giv­ing,” says Capita’s Doug Brown. “With trust and choice about how data is used, we can let peo­ple live bet­ter lives. As we move into a more vir­tu­al world, organ­i­sa­tions that can tra­verse vir­tu­al and phys­i­cal expe­ri­ences will win. But if we don’t man­age it prop­er­ly or use it for the right pur­pos­es, that will have an impact on brand val­ue and indi­vid­ual rela­tion­ships alike.” 

To dis­cov­er how Ora­cle can help your organ­i­sa­tion gain valu­able data insights, vis­it oracle.com/uk/business-analytics