(Who Is Danny/Shutterstock)
As organizations strive to deliver better customer experiences (CX), IT and data leaders are at the forefront of leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to drive meaningful change. In a world where trust and personalization can make or break an organization, AI-powered journey mapping provides actionable pathways to improve efficiency and customer experience.
Data fuels modern enterprises, yet most organizations fail to fully harness its power. Despite an abundance of analytics tools, dashboards, and automation systems, IT and data leaders still face a fundamental challenge—fragmented insights, disconnected teams, and decision-making processes that don’t leverage the full potential of available data.
Executives estimate that only 45% of business data is fully utilized in decision-making, leaving nearly half of an organization’s insights untapped. Meanwhile, 41% of business leaders rarely involve other departments in decision-making, reinforcing operational silos that slow progress, duplicate efforts, and obscure critical trends. For industries reliant on complex, multi-step processes—whether financial services, healthcare, or retail—this lack of alignment leads to costly inefficiencies.
The issue isn’t a lack of data, but the inability to connect it across teams. IT leaders may focus on system uptime, data teams on reporting accuracy, and operations teams on efficiency, but without a unified approach, these efforts remain isolated. The result? A business that reacts to challenges rather than anticipates them. To break the cycle, organizations must rethink how they integrate and act on data, shifting from fragmented decision-making to a more structured, journey-driven approach.
(imassimo82/Shutterstock)
The Cost of Fragmented Decision-Making
Every department within an organization is chasing its own KPIs, but without a shared view of data, the broader business impact is lost. IT and data teams invest heavily in analytics tools, yet leaders often lack the visibility needed to make decisions that benefit the organization as a whole. Instead of surfacing critical insights, disconnected data streams create delays, inefficiencies, and blind spots that prevent businesses from acting on emerging opportunities.
When departments operate in isolation, patterns that could drive strategic advantage go unnoticed. A company may see a drop in customer retention without realizing it correlates with delays in service response times. A retail business might experience supply chain disruptions but struggle to identify whether the issue stems from inventory mismanagement or a breakdown in vendor communications. Without a way to connect data points across teams, businesses miss opportunities to solve problems before they escalate.
A More Strategic Approach to Data Utilization
Fixing these inefficiencies requires more than better collaboration or more dashboards. Many organizations already invest in cross-functional meetings and reporting tools, but these don’t address the root problem—fragmented workflows that prevent businesses from turning insights into action.
A journey-driven approach provides IT and data leaders with a structured way to align teams, processes, and data. Instead of looking at isolated metrics, organizations can map out entire workflows, track how data moves through different departments, and identify breakdowns that slow decision-making. This approach doesn’t just improve efficiency—it allows businesses to shift from reactive troubleshooting to proactive problem-solving.
(Khakimullin Aleksandr/Shutterstock)
By integrating data across functions, businesses eliminate redundancies. When insights are accessible across teams in real time, decision-making becomes sharper and more aligned with long-term strategy. A connected framework also ensures that data is applied consistently across the organization, reducing errors and improving the reliability of analytics-driven decisions.
Why IT and Data Leaders Need to Rethink Traditional Dashboards and Metrics
One of the biggest barriers to better decision-making is how success is measured. Many organizations still track performance based on disconnected KPIs, IT measures uptime, data teams measure reporting accuracy, and customer-facing teams measure service response times. But without a connected approach, these efforts remain disjointed, failing to drive broader business impact. A recent study done of senior business decision-makers across the US, the UK and the Netherlands found that 28% of leaders admit to relying heavily on dashboards without questioning the data.
A more effective approach is to shift from departmental metrics to tracking data consistency across all functions. This means evaluating whether insights are being applied effectively, whether operational efficiency is improving across teams, and whether business decisions are being informed by a comprehensive, real-time picture rather than isolated data points.
For example, instead of simply measuring how quickly IT resolves system issues, leaders should evaluate how those fixes impact overall business performance. Are faster resolution times reducing downtime in customer support? Are improvements in analytics infrastructure leading to better forecasting for supply chain teams? When organizations track the impact of decisions across departments, they gain a clearer understanding of what’s working—and what’s not.
Turning Data into Action Through a Connected Framework
Data is only valuable when it leads to action, yet many organizations remain stuck in a cycle of collecting, analyzing, and reporting—without a clear path to execution. The missing piece isn’t more data, but a better way to integrate insights into decision-making processes.
(FastMotion/Shutterstock)
By connecting structured and unstructured data across teams, businesses can uncover patterns that would otherwise remain hidden. IT leaders can identify where inefficiencies are slowing down workflows. Data scientists can refine predictive models based on real-time organizational trends. Operations teams can adjust strategies before issues escalate.
Instead of optimizing individual processes in isolation, a connected framework ensures that insights inform strategy at every level of the organization. This makes it possible to anticipate challenges, adapt quickly to market changes, and continuously refine processes based on real-world data.
Looking Ahead – Seeing Data as a Competitive Advantage
Data silos don’t disappear on their own. As businesses scale and information becomes more complex, the gaps between disconnected teams will only grow. Organizations that don’t bridge these divides risk falling into a cycle of reactive decision-making, unable to adapt quickly or stay ahead of the competition.
For IT and data leaders, the challenge isn’t collecting more data, it’s making better use of the data they already have. A structured, journey-driven approach ensures that teams work from the same real-time insights, streamlining operations and driving more strategic decision-making. By focusing on how data is applied rather than just how much is collected, organizations can move beyond surface-level analytics to create meaningful, business-wide impact.
Businesses that embrace this shift won’t just improve efficiency, they’ll build more agile, resilient enterprises capable of navigating the ever-evolving data landscape with confidence.
About the author: Jochem van der Veer is the co-founder and CEO of TheyDo, an intuitive journey management platform. A designer by trade, he has nearly a decade’s experience in UX consultancy. Jochem founded TheyDo in 2019 to help businesses truly become customer-centric by organizing around the customer journey.
Related Items:
The Hidden Value of Customer Complaint Data
Product Analytics Puts the Roadmap Back In Product Teams’ Hands
Meaningful Customer Experiences and Increased Revenue Start with Connected Data
