MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Getting Serious About Data and Data Science

Data science, including analytics, big data, and artificial intelligence, is no longer a novel concept. Nor is the important foundation of high-quality data. Both have contributed to impressive business successes — particularly among digital natives — yet overall progress among established companies has been painfully slow. Not only is the failure rate high, but companies have also proved unable to leverage successes in one part of the business to reap benefits in other areas. Too often, progress depends on a single leader, and it slows dramatically or reverses when that individual departs the company. In addition, companies are not seizing the strategic potential in their data. We’d estimate that less than 5% of companies use their data and data science to gain an effective competitive edge.

About the Author

Thomas C. Redman (@thedatadoc1) is president of Data Quality Solutions, a New Jersey-based consultancy, and coauthor of The Real Work of Data Science: Turning Data Into Information, Better Decisions, and Stronger Organizations (Wiley, 2019). Thomas H. Davenport (@tdav) is the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College, as well as a fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and a senior adviser to Deloitte’s Analytics and AI practice.

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