Under the right conditions Data Analytics can offer organizations a strategic advantage. The Data Strategy can be seen as an extension of the Business and IT Strategy within the data realm as it addresses their requirements in certain areas, though it has its own topics.

One of the main goals of Data Analytics would be to allow the business to evaluate the strategic alternatives by answering specific questions and, why not, allowing to perform simulations, when that’s possible. Moreover, Data Analytics can be oriented towards inside, respectively toward outside, by using specific techniques to identify what the competitors do and this independently of the business strategy chosen.

Typically, the people invited when elaborating a strategy are the ones seen as business “partners”, independently if they have direct or indirect involvement.

I’d argue though that keeping the conversation honest is the function of data culture, while steering the AI race depends on how the organization is structured. In some cases, this will tend to be done by IT, while in others by business strategy itself. While for the third point, it’s subordinate to the philosophy of seeing data-as-a-product.