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TALKING
business
‘‘
The focus on Digital Transformation
and being able to better understand
customer needs are pressuring
companies to embrace data as an integral
component of the organisational culture.
However, many decision-makers are under
the misconception that this is something
that will happen organically. They believe
that if employees get access to data and
innovative solutions, the organisation will
become data-driven almost overnight. The
reality paints a completely different picture.
Over the past two decades, IT departments
approached vendors to sell them products
they would use to build solutions themselves.
However, the budget remained with business
with the service providers having no real
way of being able to integrate these two
disparate areas.
Fortunately, this has changed.
Today, it is the business units approaching the
providers and asking for assistance in making
those same platforms work with the data at
their disposal to fully unlock its potential. This
provides the makings for the strategic and
intentional move to become a data-driven
culture. In this, there is an accountability
to effectively use the products, tools and
solutions available to employees.
Putting in practice
Of course, from a practical perspective there
are a few steps the business must take. If
becoming data-driven is a strategic priority,
the business can employ similar strategies
to what worked in the past for different
business transformation journeys, even nontechnology
transformations.
The first critical strategy is to establish a
formal mandate with senior leadership
to adopt data-capabilities and follow
this mandate up with accountability by
incorporating the required key performance
indicators (KPIs) in each leader’s key
performance areas (KPAs). In turn, this must
link to and permeate through to the job
profiles of all relevant employees on all levels
in the organisation. The business must also
create intentional and strategic initiatives
to drive this. Part of this entails appointing
champions such as the Chief Data Officer
(CDO) to make it a tangible exercise.
Duncan McKay, Business Development
Manager at PBT Group
“
A DATA-DRIVEN
CULTURE IS ONE
THAT REQUIRES
A SIGNIFICANT
RETHINK ON
THE EXISTING
PROCESSES,
SYSTEMS AND
APPROACHES.
The secondary and supporting strategy is to
lean on HR support functions in helping drive
an intentional data-driven culture change.
HR Wellness capabilities are well geared for
running internal awareness campaigns to
generate hype and support for a strategic
cause, so tap into this and leverage their
internal marketing mechanisms such as
emails and the Intranet, awareness events
and online education, for example.
Furthermore, most large organisations
have an HR academy of some kind, which
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