In 2021, businesses need all the help they can get if they want to see positive figures on their end of year growth charts. According to research by PwC, only 27% of CEOs are confident that they'll see revenue growth during the next 12 months.

Consumer and business customers alike are cutting down on their spending, with 36% of consumers expecting to spend less in the next 12 months, almost double the percentage that gave that reply a year ago. As a result, it's far harder to close sales deals in the post-COVID world than it was just over a year ago. What's more, many companies are operating on smaller marketing and sales budgets and may have been forced to cut key staff.

Markets and economic conditions are fluctuating faster than ever before, making it tough for executives to fix on effective strategy for the long term, or even for the next six months. Change is all around, and the only way to keep your head above water is to stay ahead of the tides, but that's close to impossible if you don't know which way they're moving.

Smart growth-oriented businesses are therefore investing heavily in data and analytics to discover which way to jump and when. Some 84% of CEOs are relying on digital initiatives to boost their profit margins, but these too need data to operate, as does effective personalization for marketing, products, and services.

To remain ahead of the competition, correctly gauge the public mood, seize rising trends, and prepare for market changes, enterprises need both accurate data and the tools to process, manipulate, and apply it.

In 2021, a data-driven business has moved a long way from how it might have appeared even a year ago. Here are some of the major changes that data-savvy executives have presided over.  

Executives are taking control of their data

It's easy to talk glibly about "big data," but when it comes down to making practical use of it, it's often too large to grasp. That's why data-oriented leaders are building comprehensive business intelligence (BI) strategies that help them identify which datasets to explore and how to make the best use out of them.

Executives need to define the challenges and opportunities they wish to tackle, set data-focused goals, and select which data insights will be the most valuable in helping achieve them. They're considering how their corporate goals are evolving so that advanced analytics can provide helpful insights instead of red herrings. Advanced, cloud-based data analytics software helps this cause by gathering all their data in a single repository, making it easier to spot intersections between datasets that can deliver a new wealth of insights and guidance.

The newest BI tools also assist in narrowing down the most relevant datasets so that users feel empowered rather than enfeebled by the information in front of them, which is especially useful for employees who are new to data tools.

New data sources are being unlocked

Today's data-driven businesses are moving beyond the traditional financial reports and Google Analytics dashboards to open up new, valuable data sources that shed more light on their business position and market conditions.

AI and ML data tools can mine unstructured data, making it possible to glean insights from video reviews on sites like TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, as well as from podcasts, memes and other previously inaccessible data sources. Hashtag-based social listening has become a discipline unto itself.

Voice search is a fresh and growing data source, plus analysts are taking another look at internal data from sales calls, contact form completes, customer support live chat data, abandoned cart information, etc.

By forging new data partnerships, businesses are also gaining access to third-party customer behavior data that shows customer interests and helps reveal potential customer personas.

Data silos are being thrown to the ground

The noise you're hearing is the sound of silos being destroyed. Alongside opening up new data sources, businesses are also democratizing access to data that used to be locked up in individual departments.

Cloud-based data platforms make it easy to invite all the stakeholders to collaborate, even when teams are working from home. The greater the range of perspectives involved in exploring datasets, the more valuable the insights they'll discover.

As well as connecting multiple departments, businesses are also bringing together multiple types of data. Data from different platforms is likely to be formatted in different ways, so leaders are using tools to preprocess multiple datasets into a unified space, allowing data analytics tools to do their thing.

Access to BI tools is rolling out across organizations

The top data-driven businesses realize that data isn't only the preserve of data science teams and business analysts. Instead of using data people as gatekeepers to safeguard access, they are turning them into guides and educators who help every employee to tap into data and use it to improve their work.

They are building a culture that encourages everyone to explore data and apply data insights to their everyday decisions. It helps to choose analytics platforms with simple, intuitive interfaces, so that even beginners can navigate them without needing extensive training, especially when a lot of work is still taking place at home without a data expert in the same building.

Advanced AI-enabled platforms can even learn from experienced users and suggest the most useful paths for novices to help them become familiar with the processes. Intelligent data visualizations also help people derive value from data that they'd struggle to absorb and understand.

In 2021, top businesses are data-driven businesses

With markets in flux and consumer demands changing all the time, the top-performing businesses are those that are driven by data. Leading companies today are opening up access to BI tools and new data sources, removing silos between departments, and finding better ways to use data for their advantage in order to generate growth and improve revenue for the long term.