Decision makers are always being presented with selfish choices. They may however choose not to make those data-driven strategy choices because they are unclear or inaccessible. Without information, decisions will be impossible and/or wrong.

Depending on what consumers comment and move forward with your products and/or services, that can lead us to further analysis and decision-making.

How many firms actually analyse their current data? Very few. Does it make sense or is it unknown or implies that data-driven strategy sharing information would give the competition an advantage?

The importance of all that information can't be overstated. According to a Bureau of Labor & Statistics report, firms that report winning new initiatives are in their 4th year of profitability

Just imagine how much more profitable that company is by re-allocating resources across all of their initiatives in the new data-driven strategy markets and leading edge applications?

Ask yourself, "What is the value of the data I am currently collecting?"

Are the thousands of companies in North America alone or part of a worldwide twinning epidemic? Do these firms know how to effectively integrate all business information across organisations, building more profit and data-driven strategy asset value?

Have you developed a data strategy and are it working for you?

If you have a strategy and lack data to assist in that strategy, now is the time to take action. However, no discussion of data would be complete without acknowledging the importance of your data strategy.

In all business activity, the first challenge is to ascertain the business goal. If the goal is to increase sales for instance, identifying which selling channels are driving performance or which data-driven strategy sales personnel are performing well is important as well.

Next, for the data segmentation to be effective, management must establish both primary and secondary goals and objectives. Where will the information be stored? What will it contain?

How will you use the information?

If it is from published sources, how will you generate CRM reports from those sources?

If you are compiling a daily, weekly or data-driven strategy monthly summary, it will require a data cleansing process. Who will cause it? How will it be reviewed and how frequently?

From what sources are you gaining information?

There are many sources of information that companies sometimes take for granted, including: sales representative call logs, direct mail surveys, ticket sales logs, customer satisfaction comments, and such. The data from these and other sources need to be unpacked and prepared for use.

How do you use collected and analysed data from these and other sources?

The challenge of the accumulated data is to be used to identify the sources that are most relevant and valuable to the firm, and it is from these sources that the information should be used. The more valuable the information, the greater the opportunity to customise the information to suit various customer segments.The benefits of this data-crunching are enormous. Using the data-driven strategy collected information in this manner enables the agency to prepare reports from where customers and prospects sat, the size of the overall market, recognition levels for item users, the degree of customer satisfaction, the critical success factors to the company, and the bottom-line impact of each of the factors.

When a data strategy is developed and implemented successfully, not only will this base know where the needed information is to be analysed, but the collected data can support a thorough communications plan.

Elements that comprise the data strategy framework might include: data requirements (grow as the organisation), quality standards to be applied in the collection, routing, storage and sharing of information

They must balance the need for quality, availability of access to this information at all times, cost effectiveness and cooperation, among others.

The data strategy framework is not an "end in themselves" approach. It must also be a cooperative effort among the levels of service, the marketing department, and the materials department.

The shared data strategy has also an opportunity cost. While the planning effort will have ground work, the implementation effort is in fact an investment which provides the source with the foundation for a successful future.

Once the data strategy is in place, the next element is about how you use the information to tailor your communications. This is the next step of the five-step planning process.

The data strategies include the use of customised reports, compilation of sources and analysis, the design of Lets be a very inaccurate data-driven strategy representation of repeat customers interest. If we want to use trends, we need to base them on warranted curiosity.

Now we can lay the foundation for a communications plan. Ideally, your staff and customers will be on board at this stage.