Aligning Data Strategy with Company Growth
As businesses grow and expand, their data strategy plays a critical role in driving success and unlocking growth opportunities. Aligning data infrastructure with business growth is essential to ensure that the right tools, processes, and governance are in place to effectively manage and leverage data for informed decision-making.
If your company is generating $500k - $1m annually
At this stage, companies are just starting their journey, and the primary focus is on quick and cost-efficient solutions. Off-The-Shelf tools provide a convenient option for getting started with data management. These tools offer pre-built functionalities and require minimal setup, allowing businesses to kickstart their data strategy without significant investment. They are however somewhat limited in their scope and capabilities. Organisations have to work with the features provided by the tool, which may restrict their ability to extract in-depth insights. This restriction presents an opportunity cost as your company may be blind to potential optimisation opportunities. We always estimate that any data team should have a positive 20% increase each year through a mix of efficiency gains, revenue improvements and cost optimisation. In our example the opportunity costs would be around $100k – $200k.
If your company is generating $2m annually
As businesses scale and revenue increases, the limitations of Off-The-Shelf tools become more apparent. The cost of these tools starts to rise, and organisations may find themselves using multiple tools to address different use cases. This fragmentation can create challenges in data management, integration, and reporting. At this stage, businesses often require more customised reporting capabilities to gain deeper insights into their operations and optimise their strategies and should start to consider implementing their own data stack. Your opportunity cost will grow and in our example here it now rises to $400k.
If your company is generating $5m annually
When a company reaches $5m in annual revenue, its data strategy needs to evolve significantly. Custom and centralised reporting become essential to extract meaningful insights from the growing volume of data. Organisations at this stage need to invest in building their own data stack for reporting, which provides them with greater control and flexibility. By having their own stack, they can easily replace Off-The-Shelf tools that may no longer meet their evolving needs. Not having a bespoke stack in place becomes increasingly expensive, with an estimated opportunity cost of $1M at this stage of growth.
If your company is generating $10m+ annually
Once a company surpasses $10m in annual revenue, Off-The-Shelf tools may become prohibitively expensive. While you may still get some value out of these tools, the level of complexity within your data management, analytics, and reporting will have grown exponentially, requiring highly customised solutions. As such building and maintaining a bespoke data stack becomes crucial at this stage to meet the unique requirements of the business. Not having a bespoke stack now incurs a significant opportunity cost estimated at $2M. This cost represents the potential lost value from not having a tailored infrastructure that can effectively handle the scale and complexity of data at this level.
Conclusion
Aligning data strategy with growth is vital for businesses to leverage the full potential of their data and drive sustainable growth. As revenue increases, the limitations of Off-The-Shelf tools become more apparent, and the need for customised, centralised, and scalable solutions becomes critical. Investing in a bespoke data stack aligned with the company’s growth stage minimises the opportunity cost and maximises the value derived from data-driven insights and decision-making. If you need help understanding the right data tools, team and strategy for your business, why not get in touch with the friendly team at 173tech today?