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Data Design’s Co-founder and Senior Advisor Toni Haapakoski explains how, in data strategy work, business targets are turned into practical actions and why success ultimately depends on the ability to connect strategy with practice.

Who are you and what do you do?

I’m Toni Haapakoski, Senior Advisor. I work in data-driven business development: I help companies use data strategically to grow and streamline their business. My work includes especially the planning and execution of data strategies and data governance projects, as well as supporting business transformation with data.

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You have more than 20 years of experience in data and analytics. Is there a project that has stayed strongly in your mind?

One project stands out, which we did for a company in the media industry. It was different from the rest because it solved core challenges and goals at the heart of the business, not just individual technical or reporting-related issues.

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Why did this particular project stay in your mind?

The project was meaningful because it was directly linked to the company’s key targets and metrics: growing new sales, improving customer retention, and digitalizing business. The solutions did not remain at the strategic statement level, they were turned into a concrete roadmap that guided work in practice.

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What was the project about?

The company’s aim was to grow new sales, improve customer retention and shift a significant part of sales and delivery into digital channels. This was part of a broader business transformation where data and AI were seen as key enablers.

The goal of the data strategy was to support the company’s vision: reaching over one million Finns weekly, developing customer insight and engaging customers in digital services. At the same time, the company wanted to significantly increase the share of digital channels and improve profitability.

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What solution did you end up with?

We identified a total of 16 sub-goals, to which we linked different use cases. These came from perspectives such as management, marketing, media sales and customer service. One key goal was to reach over one million Finns weekly. Under that goal, examples of use cases included increasing the number of customers by improving the purchase journey and pricing, and increasing customer activity through personalized content.

Based on all of this, a data strategy was built that turned the business goals into practical actions. High-level goals were broken down into sub-goals and connected use cases, in which concrete ways to reach the goals were defined.

In addition, a feasibility analysis was done to evaluate the company’s readiness in data, technology and skills, meaning how the planned solutions could be implemented.

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What was the response to the solution?

The data strategy received excellent feedback both from the company’s leadership team and from the board. One key point of praise was that the strategic intent was successfully operationalized, in other words, turned into concrete work. This made the rollout of the strategy much easier and made it genuinely understandable and usable.

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What challenges did you encounter?

The main challenges were related to prioritization and deciding which use cases and goals were the most important for the business. The feasibility assessment also revealed shortcomings, especially in the consistency of customer data and in the application architecture.

The company lacked a centralized customer data platform, which limited segmentation and personalization opportunities. As a solution, we proposed a centralized data platform that would combine all customer and sales data.

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Any other interesting observations?

The project highlighted how broad and multi-phased the work is when data is used at the core of the business. At the same time, we noticed that the company’s data and technologies were fragmented and in an early stage of development. We also prepared an initial cost estimate for different use case areas so the company could evaluate the investment needs for the development work.

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Could the same solution concept be applied elsewhere?

Absolutely. A similar approach has been used in many other organizations, across industries but with similar challenges. A data strategy that links business goals with concrete actions is highly scalable.

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What was the best part?

The best part was working directly with the company’s strategic goals and doing work that was genuinely meaningful. The project connected business strategy with data use in a way that created a clear direction for the entire organization’s development. It was also rewarding to see how the strategy work turned into concrete actions affecting the whole organization: sales, marketing, customer service and content creation.

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