It goes without saying that data has tremendous potential to transform how businesses operate. The latest edition of IBM’s bi-annual C-Suite Study reveals that trust is key to success when it comes to data.
The research surveyed 13,500 C-suite executives from 98 countries and found that the best performing companies manage to create high levels of trust in the data they have from customers and other stakeholders.
The data highlighted a group of around 9% of the overall sample who really stood out in their appreciation for the importance of transparency, reciprocity and accountability when dealing with data. Through this, these leaders are able to build cultures of data-driven decision making, with data frequently shared through ecosystem partners. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this group also achieved significantly higher profitability and revenue figures than their peers, while also managing to innovate and deliver change more effectively.
Overcoming the trust gap
This approach to trust is crucial as we live in an age where consumers are expressing ever greater trust issues with regards to how organizations manage their data. With over 80% of consumers expressing such concerns, there was noticeably a greater willingness to share with organizations that visibly treated them and their data with more respect.
“Leading organizations that have put trust at the core of the way they use data with their customers are creating massive opportunities for greater success,” IBM say. “Today’s businesses need to be able to earn trust from their customers while also trusting the data from their own processes and ecosystems, or they will quickly fall behind their peers.”
This trust extended inside the organization as well, with the best companies going to great lengths to ensure that internal stakeholders could trust the quality and robustness of the data they’re working with. They would go to great lengths to ensure it was clean and accurate.
This was then reflected in such organizations using data to make smarter decisions, develop new business models and enter new markets.
The culture of trust even extended out into the wider ecosystem, with leading organizations consistently sharing data with stakeholders across the shared ecosystem so that win-win relationships could be forged. This was reflected in the finding that many of the leading organizations are already sharing (and acquiring) data from ecosystem partners, with most hoping to expand this network.
The report concludes with a number of recommendations to help organizations develop such trusting environments themselves, including:
- Strengthen relationships with customers by becoming trusted custodians of personal data, demonstrating transparency by revealing data about offerings and workflows, and using the trust advantage they’ve earned to create differentiating business models.
- Build confidence in data and AI models enterprise wide. Stimulate a culture of true data believers and data-based decision makers, and in turn, elevate experiences for customers and partners along their value chains.
- Learn how to share data on business platforms without giving away competitive edge. Turn the corner from amassing data to determining how best to monetize it, including how to build ecosystems to create new exponential value.
