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June 21, 2018
Your Data and Governance Processes Are Slow and Inefficient, What Now?
By: Michael Garcia
As a chief executive, you need access to real-time, credible, actionable intelligence. Unfortunately for many organizations, data is spread across siloed legacy systems. In order to grow revenues faster than your industry and competitors, you need a culture-shifting strategy centered around systems and business intelligence.
To access SBI’s comprehensive guide of best practices for systems, leverage SBI’s PDF Workbook and turn to the Systems phase for: Pricing (225-227), Marketing (335-337), and Sales (417-419). Click here to download the Top 10 Metrics your organization should start tracking today.
It’s a common and frustrating story across many organizations. You need an urgent report for an upcoming board meeting and outline the requirements. Unfortunately – the data partially resides in the CRM, some in Access, and the rest on a SharePoint site. An analyst writes a SQL query, exports to excel, deletes rows, filters, writes formulas, deletes columns. The analyst then pulls a report from SalesForce only to realize critical fields are missing and discovering stores of butchered Excel files in SharePoint. Over a week has passed and the board meeting is tomorrow – “Why is this so difficult? This should be readily available!”
Benefits gained from implementing Business Intelligence and adopting a data-driven culture are quickly realized in the forms of Excellence, Efficiency, and Enablement.
Your organization is large and complex, where do you even start?
Start by chunking your implementation framework into four organizational “sets”:
TOOLSET
What tools are you using to solve business problems? Think about how your tools interact with your data warehouses and internal systems. If you want real-time insight, you need an ecosystem that seamlessly integrates your CRM, ERP, SQL servers, and Finance and Marketing Automation systems. Otherwise, your data will live in silos – losing cross-functional visibility and associated benefits.
Now think about the future. Being aware of the landscape of analytics and the taxonomy you want to apply within your organization is mission critical. What teams go on what canvas? How should I catalogue all this information? Each function needs a platform tailored for their specific needs, but it’s important to have the means to capture and share valuable data across the organization.
Your people are only as sharp as the tools they’re given. Antiquated tools and systems means more bodies doing manual, repetitive, monotonous tasks, trapping precious capacity that can be freed with automation. If you give people the right tools, they will discover the value.
Like most initiatives involving change, driving adoption can be challenging. So how do you onboard all these tools?
DATASET
Do you have the data available to answer business questions quickly and accurately? Unfortunately, many times the answer is “no”. Corporate systems vary by age and technology and as a result, data comes in a variety of formats and taxonomies. Siloed systems across functions only exacerbate this problem.
How do you even get started establishing the credibility of your data?
SKILLSET
There are two key skillsets you must build within your organization in order to successfully implement business intelligence:
Technical Skills
How do you create an environment where this is successful? Onboarding a new tool or platform can identify gaps in existing technical skills. Whether it’s a tool like Alteryx, Tableau, SAS, SQL Server, etc. – an educational platform is crucial to driving adoption and unlocking the tool’s full potential. Deploying resources such as hand-on training, virtual webinars/workshops, and maintaining a knowledge repository are a best practice for acquiring new organizational capabilities and building data literacy.
Questioning
Too often in the business world and in life, short-term answers are emphasized rather than exploring far-reaching, potentially game-changing ideas. Questioning can spark change in your organization and teaching your staff to think critically by asking questions has far-reaching effects. Journalist Warren Berger found that Why, What if, and How questions, asked in a sequential order – seemed to be especially effective in finding solutions. The sequence of why, what if, and how allows an individual to advance through three important stages of problem-solving.
Reinforcing the idea of critical thinking by asking questions in a why, what if, and how sequence is fundamental to building a data-driven culture and adopting business intelligence. Arming people with the right tools, developing competence, and instilling question-based critical thinking is a recipe for success.
MINDSET
Focus your attention on building a culture of analytics. It’s not something you can create on your own. It emerges from the people within your organization. However, there are several actions you can take to accelerate the rate of culture and behavior change:
SUMMARY
In today’s interconnected environment, being the first to “know” is a valuable strategic advantage. Maintaining a real-time pulse of your customer base, prospects, pipeline, and market conditions is an emerging best practice being adopted by top tier organizations.
Chunk your business intelligence strategy and accompanying culture shift into buckets of “sets”: toolset, dataset, skillset, and mindset. Identify the most robust and collaborative analytical tools, onboard quickly, look for opportunities to demonstrate value, and celebrate wins. Recognize the credibility (or lack thereof) of your data. Don’t think about perfection and just get the conversation started, think less about business requirements and focus on answers.
The two key skillsets to implement business intelligence are technical skills and the ability to question. Building technical skills and investing in training tools are critical to building competence. Reinforcing the concept of critical thinking by asking questions in a why, what if, and how sequence can be the catalyst of game-changing ideas and insights. Tying these ideas together is a mindset – change is a journey that requires constant iteration and feedback.
Leverage SBI’s PDF Workbook to find best practices and a framework for your Systems strategy for: Pricing (pp 225-227), Marketing (pp 335-337), and Sales (pp 417-419).
For more assistance, visit me and my colleagues in The Studio.
Additional Resource
Learn more about how top companies use AI to win at the AI Growth Summit.
Michael tackles the toughest revenue growth challenges with elegant analytical solutions. He blends technical rigor and pragmatism to bring data science to the masses and stimulates action with authentic storytelling. Michael delivers balanced thought leadership, veracity, and scalable analytic solutions.
Michael is an experienced practitioner of the Revenue Growth Methodology. His experience with Private, Public, and Private Equity organizations uniquely position him as a trusted advisor to revenue-growth leaders.
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