Mindset and action plans
As the Lunar New Year approaches, I’ve taken a moment to reflect on my career path and the evolving mindset required for Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Analytics. The landscape in 2025 is shifting rapidly, bringing higher demands and tougher competition for those of us who want to stay ahead in the field.
I lead a decentralized BI team within the Growth & Marketing department. Unlike traditional BI teams focused on dashboard building and ad-hoc requests, our mission revolves around leveraging data insights for growth, tracking performance, and conducting deep-dive analyses into customer behavior to provide actionable recommendations. Although we don’t directly build data pipelines or dashboards, we work extensively with raw data, requiring a strong grasp of data logic, definitions, and metrics to ensure high-quality analysis.
From 2017 to 2021, during the tech startup bubble burst in SEA, the primary pressure for Marketing & Growth teams was to maximize their assigned budgets for aggressive expansion. Metrics such as user growth and impressive reports often took precedence over cost efficiency or user quality. We had the luxury of diving deep into data, uncovering insights, and driving action through our recommendations.
However, the game have changed since late 2022, the priorities have flipped. The focus shifted to cost optimization, acquiring high-quality users at lower costs, and operating under a strict P&L framework. In a turbulent era for tech startups, businesses can no longer afford a BI team that delivers vague value or takes too long to generate actionable insights.
As I planned our resources and scope for 2025, I must rethink BI’s role. We no longer have the luxury of resource-intensive projects with uncertain value. Instead, we must evolve into a hybrid function — part auditor, part strategist, and part KPI controller — to ensure business alignment, track KPIs, and drive sustainable growth.
I have no choice but to adjust the BI team’s direction and upgrade our expertise decisively.
The hardest part of this transformation is compromise, acceptance, and rapid adaptation. Why? Because it means shifting from the comfort of working with data — cleaning, analyzing, and extracting insights — to working more closely with people. Unlike data, human interactions don’t always yield immediate, measurable outcomes, making it harder to sustain motivation.
Many of us in data are naturally introverted and fear losing our technical edge. Stepping outside our comfort zone to develop soft skills and business acumen requires courage and perseverance. In today’s fast-moving environment, hesitation to adopt new knowledge and skills can mean being left behind.
So when I thought about the key changes that DA/BI should focus on in 2025, particularly in unprofitable small and medium sized tech startups, I think it will fall into the following 3 parts.
1. Delivering Actionable Insights That Drive Impact
Challenge: We need a deep understanding of business models, execution plans, and operational processes to provide practical insights that drive efficiency and measurable outcomes.
Considerations:
- Relevance: Are the insights solving a critical business problem?
- Clarity: Are the recommendations easy for decision-makers to act on?
- Feasibility: Are the proposed actions realistic given available resources?
Suggestions:
- Collaborate closely with stakeholders to understand their needs and business context.
- Use frameworks like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to tailor insights.
- Clearly articulate the “so what” factor — how the insight directly impacts key business metrics.
2. Balancing Speed and Depth of Insights
Challenge: Businesses demand fast insights to adapt to market changes, but speed can come at the cost of depth, accuracy, or relevance.
Considerations:
- Trade-offs: Quick insights may lack depth; deeper analysis may be too slow for urgent needs.
- Automation: Can repetitive tasks be automated to free up time for strategic analysis?
Suggestions:
- Empower teams with self-service BI tools for basic reporting, allowing us to focus on high-value analysis.
- Implement a two-tiered approach: rapid, high-level insights for immediate decisions and deeper analysis for long-term strategy.
- Develop templated workflows for recurring tasks to reduce turnaround time.
3. Ensuring Efficiency and Effectiveness
Challenge: Even impactful insights can fail if they’re not efficiently delivered in a format that resonates with business teams. Efficiency isn’t just about speed — it’s about ensuring the greatest impact with the least effort.
Considerations:
- Stakeholder Engagement: Are insights delivered in a way that decision-makers understand and trust?
- Iterative Feedback: Are our BI processes continuously refined based on business input?
Suggestions:
- Tailor dashboards and reports for different audiences, focusing on their specific KPIs.
- Build a feedback loop with stakeholders to evaluate which insights drove meaningful actions.
- Use storytelling techniques (e.g., visualizations, narratives) to make insights more compelling and accessible.
Along with these changes, these are the skills my team and I must learn and practice.
Structured Thinking & Problem-Solving
We have to improve the ability to solve problems quickly and comprehensively, including developing strong structured thinking and effectively applying frameworks like MECE, SMART, issue trees, and hypothesis trees.
Additionally, continuously evaluating the effectiveness of our current approach to ensure we are addressing the right questions and delivering relevant data insights. If not, we need to reframe the problems as soon as possible to identify the true root cause.
Data Storytelling & Communication
I know that many BI & Data Analysts struggle to convey insights to stakeholders from different backgrounds. Simply providing an Excel file or slides filled with unstructured charts and tables can often diminish the value of our efforts. Therefore, beyond improving our data coding skills, we must also learn how to create impactful slides, deliver effective presentations, and visualize data insights in a way that resonates with different stakeholders.
Cross-Team Collaboration & Data-Driven Culture
While we are comfortable engaging with technical peers, we often find it challenging to collaborate and align with business teams, despite being a decentralized BI team. To enhance the effectiveness and quality of BI work, we must continuously improve cross-team collaboration and instill a positive mindset that encourages data-driven decision-making. This means helping teams ask deeper questions beyond simple ad-hoc queries, enabling us to generate more meaningful insights while sharpening our own skills and expertise.
Final Thoughts
2025 will be a challenging yet exciting year. The key to thriving in BI isn’t just about mastering technical skills — it’s about embracing adaptability, fostering collaboration, and driving meaningful impact through data. By proactively refining our mindset and skill set, we can not only survive but also excel in this rapidly evolving landscape.
Be brave and face these challenges head-on, keep growing, and shape the future of data-driven decision-making together! Trust in yourself and your inner strength.
Happy 2025, Happy BI career!
