In today’s digital environment, senior leaders have real-time access to richer data sources than ever before. However, recent CGMA research indicates that information overload and data management issues hinder effective decision-making.9 Without analysis and insight, data is not knowledge — numbers require explanations, context, and conversations to become meaningful. So, how can leaders translate data into actionable insight?
As with any resource, responsible planning and management are key to maximising return.
The CGMA Global Management Accounting Principles define data planning as ‘the sourcing, assembling, refining and presenting of all the data needed to evaluate and prioritise options, set targets,predict outcomes and measure the execution of plans’.10
Best practice data planning, we found, covers the entire value-generation process (or business model), but it does not stop there — data decisions are proving to be an emerging driver in this accelerated, rapid results environment. Governments continue to struggle to harness the full potential of new technologies as the disconnect still exists between what is needed and what is provided to benefit ALL stakeholders, both internal and external.
‘The speed of decision-making is a key attribute of competitive advantage today. We have rich sources of data, and the technologies that enable us to interrogate, connect and leverage this rich data to produce actionable insights’.
Ash Noah, Vice President and Managing Director, Management Accounting, AICPA & CIMA — Frictionless finance: Driving data to value white paper11
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________9 Joining the dots: Decision making for a new era, CGMA, 2016, cgma.org/resources/reports/ joining-the-dots.html10 Global Management Accounting Principles© — Effective management accounting: Improving decisions and building successful organisations (Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, 2014). 11 White paper, Frictionless finance: Driving data to value, AICPA & CIMA, Workday and Deloitte, 1 March 2022. aicpa.org/professional-insights/download/driving-data-to-value-with-frictionless-finance.
Data should be structured to incorporate all elements of the business model – input, activities, outputs, and outcomes. It should have the following features:
Efficient
Explicitly linked to organisational objectives
Rigorously prepared
Supports decision-making
Readily accessible and intelligible to users
Secure
Comprehensive
Consistently defined and labelled
Resilient to change and adaptable
Data infrastructures, as defined by the Open Data Institute (ODI), comprise technology, processes, and organisation. They can exist at city, national, or global levels. Data infrastructure consists of data assets: organisations, the individuals or alliances that operate and maintain them, and guides that describe how to use and manage the data. Strong, accessible data infrastructures can build trust, increase accountability, promote cross-sector alliances, encourage innovation, and enable citizens to make informed decisions about the communities in which they live and work.