Peter Drucker, the universally known management expert, is credited for observing that “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” the powerful reminder that organizational success hinges more on people than on most anything else. Most executives in a recent Forbes Insights/Treasure Data survey tend to agree, as they recognize that more than anything, a customer-data-driven enterprise is about empowering employees. A majority, 54%, say their vision is one in which employees are rewarded for identifying and acting on opportunities identified through analytics. Similarly, 47% say that their ideal data-driven enterprise enables all employees to become data analysts to some level, with fewer lines of authority when making decisions backed by data.
At the same time, the survey found that employees are still constrained when it comes to acting on customer data insights. For the most part, employees can act on insights only with management approval, as stated by 48%. Another 37% have a bit more leeway, being empowered to act after consulting with managers. Only 14% have full autonomy to act on data insights without management oversight.
While only one in five executives consider their organization to be a leader in customer data management, reporting that the majority of their organization’s decision making is customer-data-driven, close to half agree that empowering their workforce is the key to achieving such a transformation. Even so, 58% say that their greatest challenge in leveraging customer data analytics is the skill levels of employees.
Employees at all levels of the enterprise need to be involved in the process of discovering, analyzing and acting on the insights arising from customer data. Otherwise, all the high-level strategizing—and technology investments, for that matter—won’t make a difference in driving growth.
Here are six ways to build the data analytics capabilities of your workforce, and accelerate your transformation into a customer-data-driven culture:
- Share the vision across the organization: Adopting a culture driven by customer data analytics means transformation on many levels, both for the business and for individual jobs. As with any transformative effort, there will be some degree of fear and resistance. By communicating and sharing the vision—such as pursuing disruptive innovation to deliver a product or service in new ways—across the company, leadership can help employees become better suited to turn that vision into reality.
- Emphasize “soft” skills: Soft skills are just as essential when it comes to maximizing the value of customer data platforms, according to the Forbes Insights/Treasure Data survey. Presentation and sales skills—the ability to sell concepts and new ideas—ranked as the top skills required for both users and implementers, more so than analytical skills or critical thinking. Consider implementing training programs or initiatives that fine-tune these soft skills if you want to make the most of your customer data.
- Establish governance: Put someone in charge of driving home the importance of customer data, such as a chief data officer or chief analytics officer. In addition, form a cross-enterprise team or center of excellence that will help provide direction, get buy-in and keep data analytics efforts above any political frays.
- Focus on continual learning and improvement: Customer preferences, markets and technology can change from one month to the next. Develop a formal process of documenting successes and lessons learned from each experience or campaign. Always be open to new ideas or concerns.
- Tie compensation to analytics: To encourage adoption of analytics across all levels of the enterprise, it’s important to provide incentives. This also sends a signal to employees that it’s okay to experiment and try out new ways of approaching problems with data.
- Develop a “data-first” approach: Building data-driven thinking into all processes will help evolve a data-driven culture. This may be seen by requiring all staff meetings to start with the review of a dashboard, for example, or by requiring data to justify any and all expenditures.
As the urgency of superior customer experience becomes a concern for everyone across the enterprise, training and education—along with access to tools and platforms—will be essential for driving employee engagement and will foster respect for leadership.
For more information, read “Data Versus Goliath: Customer Data Strategies to Disrupt the Disruptors.”
