World Economic Forum: Unlock Business Value with Unified Data Strategy
The World Economic Forum has released a crucial best-practice report, 'Unlock Business Value Through A Unified Data Strategy', offering a roadmap for businesses to build a future-ready data strategy in the AI era. Published in January 2025, the report underscores the importance of understanding AI maturity and strategic goals for data-driven initiatives.
At the heart of the report lies a clear framework for aligning, communicating, and activating a data-driven strategy. This involves converting data into real-time, automated decisions that drive business outcomes such as revenue growth and competitive advantage. In the new AI era, data must be semantically rich and accessible to all, enabling informed conversations and agile insight generation across the organization.
To turn data into business outcomes, the report advises linking data investments to core objectives, balancing risk and reward, building a data-centric workforce, and creating reusable, future-ready platforms. Effective data usage is about leveraging data at scale, with trust, to predict shifts and outmaneuver competitors. Data can now power product lines, shape industry-specific solutions, and become a strategic asset in partnerships, requiring compliance and ethical considerations.
In 2025, a robust data strategy is more crucial than ever due to stringent regulations, rapid AI advancements, and customer demands for hyper-personalization. The World Economic Forum's report serves as a vital guide for businesses to navigate the complex data landscape, align stakeholders, and unlock business value through a unified data strategy.