Odaseva recently commissioned Forrester ConsultingOpens a new window to study what enterprise CRM professionals think about data. The responses were surprising. For the study, Forrester surveyed enterprise CRM platform leaders and architects about the issues at the heart of CRM data management: Are they delivering the data value their stakeholders expect? Is CRM data helping to drive business decisions?
The most surprising takeaway to me was that 85% of the respondents said that getting better insights from data for business decision-making was a critical or top priority. But at the same time, 78% agree or strongly agree that gaps in basic data management capabilities were preventing them from taking full advantage of their data.
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Data volume and velocity continue their exponential growth trend, especially in the enterprise. However, “all the data in the world is of little use if it’s hard to protect, control, and share,†says the Forrester study. “Enterprises are struggling with a lack of basic data management capabilities and specialist skills that will allow them to better take advantage of their data.â€
I believe this speaks to a widely experienced but little-discussed challenge. The demands that businesses place on their data exceed the platforms’ capabilities where the data is collected and stored.
Enterprises Expect CRM To Contribute to Data-driven Insights, But Data Fundamentals Are Getting in the Way
Enterprises are relying more on data insights for decision making, but fundamentals are hindering their ability to do so, the Forrester study found. About 78% of survey respondents said that the lack of data management fundamentals was keeping them from realizing their data’s full potential.
And while CRM platforms were designed to promise a seamless experience for customers and employees, 47% of respondents said they could not rely on their CRM data to provide a single source of truth regarding customer data. Almost as many as 44% are unable to perform advanced customer analytics with CRM data, and 40% said they could not use CRM to drive improved personalization.
But that’s not because they don’t want to. The study showed that making better use of data is a top-of-mind business objective, with 85% saying they consider improving the use of data insights for decision-making as a high or critical priority.
So while data-driven insights are critical, data management basics are keeping businesses from making the most of their data. That’s a painful disconnect.
What Is Limiting Enterprises From Using Data To Generate Insights?
So what’s the cause of this disconnect? Primarily data security.
According to the Forrester study, data security is the number one area limiting enterprises’ abilities to use data and generate insights in their critical business priorities.
This is caused by organizational structures that overly restrict the use of data, complexity in determining which level of security and privacy is appropriate for CRM data, and the lack of specialist data skills that limits CRM data use.
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How Can Enterprises Avoid These Problems and Effectively Use Salesforce Data for Business Decision-making?
We’ve seen enterprises affected by these issues, as well as ones that avoid them. In our experience, the most successful data-driven companies focus on two main things:
Prioritize data: Take the time to understand your data architecture and think through data concerns at the beginning of projects.
Invest in the foundational elements of your data value chain: Rather than leaping directly to sophisticated initiatives, start with the basics. Is data protected in the event of a disaster? Is your organization ready to comply with data regulations like GDPR and CCPA? Is there a process to move data out of production environments when it’s no longer needed?Â
They’re not the most exciting questions to ask about data in the age of AI and machine learning, but they are essential.
Answering them puts you in a much better position to deliver on the critical data use cases to your organization.
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