they have the support of managers, clients, and team members alike in their data discovery, wherever it may lead.
This requires not only trust but also effective cross-team communication.
Are you encouraging your employees to be brave with data?
Should they share that alarming data point about profitability with their manager, or tuck it away in a corner somewhere, as they don’t want to make any waves? Alongside this transparency and data bravery, comes logical thinking.
Data is data and numbers are numbers. The analysis is what brings it all to life.
We must consider the customer, and grow to be their ethical, transparent business partner in success while simultaneously working towards increased profitability.
The good news is that technology is making this easier than ever. From online marketing to team trackers to ROI analysis tools to integration of online and offline sales tracking, data can be tracked more easily and effectively than ever.
Once we have, and share, this data across the organisation, we can effectively understand profitability factors, customer feedback, and the overall health of the business model, then we can improve it!
There are two key soft skills that we see emerging in our business. The first is that everyone needs to be a data storyteller. Collecting and listing numbers isn’t enough, it’s important to turn data into meaningful, actionable insights that people understand.
From salespeople using search trends or link reports to show a client why they need to market online to operations observing leave trends and taking proactive steps to reduce
.
unexpected leave, data is the beginning of the journey, it’s the responsibility of the team member to understand and communicate it.
Data is no longer just for the Analysts.
Secondly, cross-team knowledge is critical to business. Under the old BPO/KPO model, team members must know one task and know it well. This isn’t enough.
Marketing is more like a painting and less like an assembly line. When team member only understands their task, they will be missing the bigger picture, new opportunities for the client, and lack understanding of the whole chain. For corporate innovation to happen, everyone must be an innovator.
Only by giving a full picture of the company, deliverables, and tasks involved, team members can understand the full business and suggest improvements.
Technology and progress are making this easier, faster, and more affordable. As an overall trend, we are seeing more data and more precise data. This path will continue, with advancements enabling marketers to view offline and online marketing data side by side with ROI and expense metrics. As this data converges its critical management and team members alike can easily understand and act on this data.
Looking into The Future - Using Data for Cognitive Computing
Cognitive refers to the mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment. Cognitive computing involves self-learning systems that use data mining, pattern recognition, and natural language processing to mimic the way the human brain works.