Senior management teams barely using data for decision-making

Senior management teams are lagging in their use of data for strategic decision-making, resulting in missed business opportunities, a new survey of investment management firms reveals. A report based on research by the marketing and communications consultancy BackBay Communications reveals that while data is widely used for performance measurement, investment decision-making, regulatory reporting and risk management, only 11 per cent say it is being used very well for strategic decision-making, with 31 per cent saying it is not being used well, if at all.

Not surprisingly, 27 per cent respondents say their firm regularly misses out on or loses business because their intelligence and use of data is not good enough. Ninety-six per cent companies have either introduced, or are planning to introduce, a data governance framework to improve the availability and use of data across the organisation, highlighting its growing importance to investment firms; however, a 26 per cent respondents still do not feel that senior management sufficiently recognises the value of data as an asset.