6 Ways Businesses Can Get Value from Data | Velosio

Data is one of your organization’s most valuable assets. It drives smarter decision-making, improves operational efficiency, and creates a competitive edge. Yet, despite significant investments in data initiatives, many organizations fail to unlock their full potential. Why?

The reasons are often rooted in common challenges that hinder progress. Here, we’ll explore six barriers that might be holding your organization back and share insights from industry experts to help you overcome them.

1. Poor Data Quality: Garbage In, Garbage Out

The challenge: Inconsistent, incomplete, or inaccurate data can undermine analytics efforts and lead to poor decision-making.

The impact: Insights derived from low-quality data erode trust in analytics, result in wasted resources, and can send organizations down the wrong path.

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The expert perspective: Successful organizations treat data quality as an ongoing priority, not a one-time project. Regular audits, validation processes, and advanced cleaning tools are essential for maintaining accuracy. Automated tools and a clear data ownership structure can make this process more manageable.

2. Lack of Clear Goals: No Direction, No Results

The challenge: Many organizations dive into data projects without clear, measurable objectives, leading to misaligned efforts and lackluster results.

The impact: Data becomes a resource without purpose, delivering minimal return on investment (ROI) and underutilized insights.

The expert perspective: Start with a defined data strategy. What business outcomes are you aiming to achieve? Whether improving customer retention or optimizing supply chains, aligning data projects with measurable KPIs ensures your efforts are purposeful and results-driven.

3. Inadequate Data Governance: The Wild West of Data

The challenge: Without clear policies and processes, data security, accuracy, and compliance become difficult to manage.

The impact: Organizations face increased risks of data breaches, regulatory penalties, and a loss of customer trust. Gartner predicts that by 2027, 60 percent of organizations will not realize sufficient value of their AI use cases due to incohesive data governance frameworks.

The expert perspective: Building a governance framework doesn’t need to be overwhelming. Define data ownership, establish accountability, and create policies prioritizing security and compliance. With modern tools, many aspects of governance—like compliance tracking or access management—can be automated to reduce the burden on your team.

4. Insufficient Skills: a Talent Gap in A Data-Driven World

The challenge: A lack of expertise in analyzing, interpreting, and acting on data leaves organizations unable to fully capitalize on their investments.

The impact: Data tools go underutilized, and opportunities for innovation are missed.

The expert perspective: Invest in both people and technology. Providing training for existing teams and hiring specialized talent can bridge the skills gap. Make your goal not just to hire data scientists but to build collaboration between IT and business units so that your entire organization is aligned and equipped to act on insights.

5. Outdated Systems: The Cost of Technological Debt

The challenge: Legacy systems often weren’t built to handle the volume, velocity, or variety of modern data.

The impact: Outdated platforms create inefficiencies, limit scalability, and make adopting advanced tools like AI and machine learning more challenging.

The expert perspective: The move to scalable, cloud-based platforms has revolutionized how businesses modernize their data strategies. Rather than causing disruption, upgrading systems focuses on adopting solutions that adapt to your growth and integrate effortlessly with your existing workflows.

6. Data Silos: Breaking Down Barriers to Insights

The challenge: When departments store data in isolated systems, the result is fragmented analytics and missed opportunities for holistic insights.

The impact: Siloed data makes it harder to identify trends, collaborate across teams, and achieve organizational goals.

The expert perspective: Breaking down silos requires both cultural and technological shifts. Foster a culture of collaboration across departments and invest in unified data platforms that integrate disparate sources into a single, comprehensive view. Tools like data lakes and APIs can streamline this process, making data accessible to everyone who needs it.

Your Data is Your Advantage

Organizations that succeed with data understand that increasing the value of their data involves having the right tools and creating the right foundation. From ensuring data quality to aligning goals, addressing these six barriers is the key to transforming your data into actionable insights.

Ready to unlock the full potential of your business data? Book a free consultation to explore how expert guidance and modern tools can help your organization overcome these barriers and drive measurable results.

Six Reasons Why You Aren’t Getting Value from Your Data