The Role of Data in Digital Transformation

Data has become central to the strategic future of many companies across industries. The Economist highlighted as far back as 2017 how data had overtaken oil as the most valuable resource in the world, highlighted by the fact that the five most valuable publicly traded firms in the world were all technology companies: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft (https://www.economist.com/leaders/2017/05/06/the-worlds-most-valuable-resource-is-no-longer-oil-but-data). Whether it’s using data to surface more relevant search results, ads, content, or products, technology companies were able to harness the power of digitization and data maturity to develop capabilities that helped better understand their customers, shifts in demand, and how to best serve their clients.

In this chapter, we’ll explore the following topics:

• The role of data in digital transformation
• The importance of data-driven culture
• The impact...