Leadership is what enables an organization to bridge the chasm between where it is and where it should be – Fred Smith
In his book Bleedership, Jim Lange tells the story of a woman in a hot air balloon who realized that she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man below. She descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me, can you help me? I have no idea where I am and I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago.”
The man consulted his GPA monitor and replied, “You are in a hot air balloon approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.”
“You must be an engineer,” said the balloonist.
“I am” replied the man. “How did you know?”
“Well”, answered the lady in the balloon, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to make of your information, and, the fact is I am still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help so far.”
The man responded, “You must be in management”
“I am”, replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”
“Well”, said the man, “first you don’t know where you are or where you are going. Second, you have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. Third, you made a promise you can’t keep, and furthermore, you expect me, someone else, to solve your problems. The fact is, lady, you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now somehow it is my fault”.
The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer – Thomas Watson
The story above highlights where some organizations are in their data journey: lost and not sure they are getting the right answers.One of the best questions a leader can ask about their organization’s data strategy, if it has one or is trying to create one, is “whether they have an effective data strategy”. I believe that an effective data strategy should be able to help an organization:
Answer important (strategic and operational) business questions.
Build their customer base by providing superior and personalized customer experience.
Create operational efficiencies – including quality, cost savings, accuracy, etc- and increased productivity within the organization.
Design and enhance data driven monetization models/opportunities for the organization.
Enhance their competitive edge in the market-place.
At EBCHIM Innovation and Research, we measure the effectiveness our clients’ data strategy by asking the aforementioned questions. We start every data strategy consultation by first understanding the client’s business and, the (strategic and operational) questions they need answers to. In addition, we also think about questions the client is not asking, that they should be asking. Finally my best part of any engagement is to ask the client, “what questions keep you up at night?”.
I had the opportunity to work with some of my students on a Strategic Analytics Framework for a car dealership in Canada. One of the questions the CEO had for us was “ where do my customers come from?” Of course he had a “business” sense of where his customers were coming from but it was awesome that we were able to use their customer data to answer the question and, generate additional insights about their clients that they could act on. In this scenario, we leveraged a Business Intelligence tool to map the various locations of the client’s customers.
An ineffective data strategy may, in the short run, create some excitement within an organization but, eventually will become a very expensive pet project with no tangible and/or sustainable benefits to the organization.
Patrick