A Guide to Data Strategy Understand, Plan, Implement

A data strategy is a communications vehicle: it shows executives what they'll get for their investments in data; it tells department heads and staff the data services they'll receive and when; and it aligns the data team, giving them direction and purpose.

To help your organization get more value from data, we've created this Guide to Data Strategy, which consists of 18 resources from our research library. The guide is designed to help data leaders and business executives understand, plan, and implement a data strategy. Contact us if you want to discuss any or all of this!

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Understand

Report

Data Strategy Guidebook: What Every Executive Needs to Know

May 28, 2024 A data strategy shows how data will transform an organization and harmonize conflicting forces, such as governance and self-service, speed, and standards. It defines goals, metrics, risks, use cases, and a roadmap that specifies the people, processes, technology, organization, and cultural change required to achieve the vision. This report defines what a data strategy is, explains why organizations need them and discusses how to create one.

Event

Webinar: Secrets to Creating an Effective Data Strategy - Tips from Industry Leaders

This webinar brings together industry experts and data leaders to discuss the what, why, and how of data strategies. This discussion is guaranteed to help your organization get more value from its data.

Blog

How Change Happens: Driving Technology Adoption

March 10, 2023 Recent research into the dynamics of social networks provides lessons for data leaders about how to spread and sustain change.

Special Offer

Is Your Organization Data-Driven? Take Our Assessment

June 4, 2024 Eckerson Group's Success Signals assessment evaluates the degree to which your organization is data-driven. It assesses your organization's data &...

Blog

The Head, Heart, and Herd of Change Management

March 12, 2018 Change is hard. Humans are hard-wired for constancy. Whether they know it or not, data analytics managers are change agents. For data analytics managers...

Report

A Reference Architecture for Self-Service Analytics

September 1, 2016 To succeed with self-service analytics, organizations need a reference architecture that maps business users, technology, and developers to an...

Plan Your Data Strategy

E-book

How to Sell a Data Strategy to Business Executives

June 15, 2021 This guide is for data and analytics leaders who need to convince business executives to invest in an enterprise data analytics program. Without executive support, data and analytics leaders face an uphill battle to ensure the success and survival of their programs—and their careers.

Podcast

Interview with Tiffany Perkins-Munn

Wayne Eckerson conducts a lively interview with Tiffany Perkins-Munn who runs a 275-person data and analytics team at JP Morgan Chase.

E-book

Making the Most of Your Data Analysts: Strategies to Empower, Align, and Retain Them

November 16, 2022 Data analysts are pivotal to the success of a data and analytics program. Whether data analysts are centralized or embedded in departments, data leaders...

Event

What Works Series: How to Put the Business First and become a Data-Driven Leader

November 21, 2023 This session of the What Work series will present a framework for becoming a data-driven leader that puts “business” back into business analytics.

Blog

Why Non-Profits Need a Data Strategy

August 16, 2024 Non-profit organizations are more mission-driven, consensus-driven, and resource-constrained than commercial organizations. As a result, it’s imperative...

Blog

BI Power Struggle: A Strategy for Success

June 23, 2015 If you are a business intelligence (BI) leader and feeling on the defensive, there is good reason. Every ten years like clockwork, our industry swings...

Implement a Data Strategy

Speech

Constructing Your Data Strategy: A Business and Technical Foundation for Success

June 17, 2024 A data strategy is an enterprise-wide plan to harness data and analytics to achieve business goals. At a high level, it is a blueprint for creating a data-driven organization; at a low level, it is a set of plans to acquire, transform, and deliver data to business users and applications to facilitate decision-making and action. This course book defines a data strategy, explains why organizations need them, and outlines its core components.