Using Data to Inform Your Strategic Plan: A Guide for Organizations

Organizations that use data to inform their strategic plans are more likely to succeed. Data can provide insights into areas such as student performance, enrollment trends, faculty productivity, and the impact of research. It can also help you understand your audience and create campaigns that attract and engage them. Companies that use big data have seen an increase in profits of 8-10% and a 10% reduction in total costs.

However, only 57% of companies base their business decisions on data. To use data to inform your strategic plan, you need to identify your vital signs that will indicate the health of your organization and progress towards your strategic goals. This includes doing more of what worked and less of what may or may not work based on the data collected. Knowing what strategies have been successful for your competitors can help guide the creation of your own creative campaign. Data can tell you the true dollar value of your campaigns which will drive a smart business strategy going forward. Let's say you want more people to subscribe to your premium SaaS tool in Europe.

In this case, generating more records is your top priority. During the research phase, you might discover that 75% of premium subscriptions come from Norway, but less than 10% come from the United Kingdom or Germany. This is where data-based decision making comes in - instead of analyzing historical data, it involves updating the text but keeping the same tone and directing new users to the same web pages. Online behavior such as how much time a consumer spends on one page compared to another page can give you a lot of information about the value or optimization of that content. To ensure success, it is important to focus on fostering a culture that supports data-based decision-making and encourages innovation, as well as creating and supporting a trained workforce capable of working with digital technologies. Establishing your strategic objectives requires data and evidence to prioritize your actions, allocate resources, and monitor progress.

This data can be used to assess the viability, impact, and urgency of each potential objective and classify them accordingly. With the right data-driven approach, organizations can make informed decisions that will help them reach their goals.