Data Strategy Starts With a Business Question, Not a Platform
Most enterprise data programs begin with platform selection. The ones that succeed begin with a clear articulation of what decisions the data needs to improve.
Written by
Nathan Ice
Published
November 30, 2024
The pattern is familiar: a leadership team decides the organization needs a data strategy. A working group forms. A vendor is selected. A data platform is deployed. Two years later, the organization has a sophisticated data infrastructure and a limited ability to answer the questions that actually drive the business.
The failure mode is always the same. The program started with technology rather than with the decisions the technology needed to enable.
A useful data strategy starts with a very different question: what are the highest-value decisions in this business, and what information would make them materially better? The answer to that question should drive everything — architecture, tooling, governance, and investment priority.