Recent Posts
CROSS-INDUSTRY STUDIES SHOW THAT ON AVERAGE, LESS THAN HALF OF AN ORGANIZATION’S STRUCTURED DATA IS ACTIVELY USED IN MAKING DECISIONS—AND LESS THAN 1% OF ITS UNSTRUCTURED DATA IS ANALYZED OR USED AT ALL. MORE THAN 70% OF EMPLOYEES HAVE ACCESS TO DATA THEY SHOULD NOT, AND 80% OF ANALYSTS’ TIME IS SPENT SIMPLY DISCOVERING AND PREPARING DATA. DATA BREACHES ARE COMMON, ROGUE DATA SETS PROPAGATE IN SILOS, AND COMPANIES’ DATA TECHNOLOGY OFTEN ISN’T UP TO THE DEMANDS PUT ON IT.
Data strategy “zooms out” several levels to include the users of – and uses for – information to support new, rapidly changing business processes and new opportunities for analysis
Data management is no longer just about the ability to store and process or create and delete data. It’s now about a holistic approach to managing all the information your business is collecting to improve business processes and discover new opportunities for analysis, then turning that into better decisions and companywide value.
Digital transformation (DX) is the hot topic in nearly every boardroom, but many executives are asking the question: “Where do we get quick wins that will kick-start our efforts and show the organization that DX can help them do their work?”
Numerous articles and presentations focus on the “how to” – creation of your digital strategy, but far fewer actually point you in the direction of implementation tactics, and even fewer, quick wins to support the transformation efforts.
Here are some ideas to gain quick wins in your digital transformation efforts.
Map One Success Metric to Actionable Data
Like the age-old question, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!”, picking a single success metric achievable through a data-driven effort, makes getting underway much easier.One common metric is eliminating data “silos” – data accessible to only a limited group of users or one function within the organization - which make access to data difficult from areas that do not utilize the application(s) directly producing or consuming the data. By increasing access, you can encourage innovative use of that data by other areas.
One of the highest impact efforts might be to survey the organization regarding their ability to gain a full perspective on your customer, and use that as the driver to determine the first data silo(s) to attack.
Establishing a simple front-end dashboard application for that specific data store, provides a way to support 360o access and encourage innovative use of that data by other areas. This also provides a great opportunity to gain valuable feedback from the organization in a proof-of-concept but live “hands-on” example. With that feedback, additional data stores can be easily added and a more feature-rich front-end established, either purchased based on the feature set defined through this effort, or built out more fully by the internal team. One of the highest impact efforts might be to survey the organization regarding their ability to gain a full perspective on your customer, and use that as the driver to determine the first data silo(s) to attack.
Identify A Specific Data Quality Issue
You can leverage the effort you invest in your first quick win to extend that to a data quality element. Let’s say you picked end-to-end customer view as your actionable data access goal. Along with that, you could determine, though user feedback, validity of the data they are now seeing. This creates a closed loop and that feedback allows you to monitor and manage the quality of the newly visible and available customer data.It may be that a simple adjustment to one or more applications, each of which use different input selection lists, would improve quality immediately – for example one application might use the full state name “Massachusetts” while another might use “MA” for the state field. These simple changes have a big impact in future analytics usability and overall data quality.
Address Key Management Reporting Accessibility
We also frequently hear the lament “I can only get a report after weeks of waiting, if at all, and then it may not actually provide the analysis I needed.” This quick win is to move the reporting ability into the hands of the users. One key here, of course, is ease of use. The tool provided must be simple to use and intuitive. Including video tutorials, 1-on-1 or other training for the managers as it is rolled out is vital. It might be the same application or tool you used to provide your initial integration effort in the first quick win, which may mean less effort here as you continue to deliver incremental additional function.This is a powerful quick win, however, due to the spotlight you have now aimed at your data. If management users can now easily see a view of the data from areas previously inaccessible, it pours fuel on the fires of change and speeds you along the DX journey.
Looking for a key quick win that spans several of the elements of the data strategy stack, as you can see, will power up your DX journey and demonstrate value to the organization, which, as we know, is key to motivating the necessary change adoption so vital to success in the transformation to a data-driven model.
You’ve selected your solution, IT and business managers are in alignment, enterprise software implementation begins...the system goes live as planned. But as you talk to staff who are supposed to be using the system, adoption is not what you intended it was supposed to be. Users are rebelling, the old process lingers – except now it is manually managed outside the shiny new system. Rather than productivity gains, things are now taking longer. The board room is awash in argument about how to fix the “failure”. If you’ve experienced this – or if you are in it right now – it may be reassuring to know it is, sadly, a common situation. You know that change is difficult and the fear of change ranks nearly as high as the fear of public speaking or death! Yet all too often the project plan fails to include, consider or budget for specific change management elements, certain to result in project failure, or at the least, lengthy and painful transition.
IT Distractions Reducing Finance Department ROI?
3 Keys to Improved Performance
You are on top of the company’s financial state and everything is in tip-top shape. You can instantly show where the company stands – from days receivables to payables balance, cash on hand, employee turnover and cost of benefits. But, if you were asked what the finance department has for an internal “ROI”, what would you say? If you were focused on improving the productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness of your department, where would you start? What might have the largest impact? We frequently hear from CFO and Finance Executives who feel that IT distractions are high on their list of things that, if addressed, could achieve all these benefits.
MIND THE GAP: SURVEY KEY TO AVOIDING QUICKSAND IN ERP SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATIONS
When I talk with IT leaders, whether they’re at companies as big as the top of the Fortune 500 list, or much smaller, I hear stories about the dark underbelly of business process automation. Just the other day I had an example from the top IT troubleshooter at a Fortune 10 pharmaceutical manufacturer.
If you are still running text-based software – often called “green screen”, you’re not alone – many companies do because it just works! Further, the cost to upgrade to new systems can break the budget, if not the entire company.
But text-based systems are challenging. You’re probably frustrated at the dwindling number of people who are interested in working on a text-based system, and concerned that at some point you’ll have to update your system. So, in the face of limited budget and potentially a lack of experienced developers for the platform, what can you do?
Here are 5 simple steps to evaluating your choices and moving toward a modern interface: