Innovation and Strategy - By Barbara Adey
In July, I presented on automation and analytics at the National Association of Corporate Directors Tech Symposium. There was a lively debate at the conference on whether “a company needs a data strategy.” Lots of ways to interpret the phrase, and I offer the following.
Data is a valuable tool in the development of an innovation strategy that answers these questions:
- How can we expand our markets?
- How might our existing revenues be vulnerable to disruption?
- How can we continue to reduce our costs?
It’s unlikely that the idea for Amazon’s Alexa came from data analytics. The product concept was undoubtedly refined with data analytics, but the inspiration had to have come from human imagination. Any significant market expansion will come from creative experimentation based on a deep understanding of customer needs and potential combinations of technologies.
Technical leaders well understand disruption within the company. By technical leaders, I mean the people in engineering and product management who spend time outside the company's four walls. They always know about pending disruption, but their message may be muted on the way up the management chain.
Cost reduction can be driven by automation and analytics. The key is to take a fresh approach to process design rather than simply re-instantiating the current state. This requires a rare skill set to imagine what could be while also having a detailed understanding of current operations.
Throughout, data hygiene is required. Cybersecurity, precisely a secure operations approach of continuous diagnostics and mitigation, is critical. It’s essential to listen and make intelligent use of all kinds of data generated across the organization. Insights come from many places, and the challenge is to move from insight to action.
Learn more about our newest Strategic Advisor, Barbara Adey

Whether you're preparing for Cybersecurity certification, working with government standards, or simply starting your career in compliance, these are the NIST Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS), Special Publication (SP), and Interagency Report (IR) topics