Patents, skills and technologies have always been considered the main assets of companies. The strides made in digitalization, however, have made clear another asset that is often undervalued by companies and not properly exploited: data assets. Today, what makes the difference between a company innovating and growing, even during the most complicated times, is precisely the ability to know how to make the most of the information in its possession. Indeed, those who, in the not-so-distant past, invested in solutions to better capture and manage information are in an advantaged position today.
The advantage of being a data-driven company
The organizations that are best able to meet the challenges imposed by the market, even in complex and crisis situations, are those that are data-driven, that is, data-driven. Indeed, it is thanks to data assets that managers can make informed and timely decisions about how to run the business, and this has been especially evident in recent times. When global supply chains were suddenly disrupted, data was the key to finding quick and functional solutions and thus ensuring business continuity. Those who leveraged data were able to quickly reorganize the supply chain, but also to identify new solutions and business opportunities that would not have been easy to find with traditional methods. Data culture, in short, is the foundation of efficiency and innovation.
Business assessment and the importance of data to develop and retain talent
Among the most important assets in business, besides data, are talent: collecting all the information in the world is of little use if you don’t have the right people to extract value from it. Today, companies globally face an extremely difficult challenge: closing the skills gap. A problem also highlighted by the European Union, which is deploying resources with the goal of getting to the point where 80 percent of the Old Continent’s population will have basic digital skills by 2040. Today, in fact, less than half of the population possesses these basic skills: in Italy we are at 41 percent, and progress is slow, so much so that it is estimated to be very difficult to reach the goal in just 8 years.
Basic skills by the way are not the only ones in demand: companies that focus on innovation need people with specific and more advanced than average skills. It is true that institutions are trying to modernize the education system, including with a view to stimulating the study of STEM disciplines, but it will take time before these figures are ready.
As a result, companies need to make the most of what they already have by retaining talent and activating training programs for their employees. Before even initiating these kinds of initiatives, however, it is necessary to understand the starting point: what skills are there in the company? Which ones are needed? In which areas is intervention to improve workers’ skills and knowledge most urgently needed? Useful information not only to understand how to improve business, but also to cut costs and check knowledge of safety procedures so as to reduce the risk of workplace accidents.
One tool to support these processes is SAP Assessment Management by Questionmark, a collaborative platform that is also accessible from mobile devices and allows for quizzes, tests and surveys so as to understand workers’ skills and their ability to follow operational procedures. This is also extremely important from a regulatory compliance perspective, especially when working in heavily regulated industries such as finance or medical, where a procedural error can have even serious consequences. Support for 36 languages also makes the solution suitable for multinational companies with offices in various countries.
The companies that are best able to meet the challenges imposed by the market, even in complex and crisis situations, are those that are data-driven, that is, data-driven. Data that also proves to be fundamental in business assessment processes.
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