Technology Decisions Issue 3 | Page 19

Get started with Big Data: tie strategy to performance 4. Understand the organizational implications Finally, it's important to note that the threats and opportunities associated with big data often have organizational implications that only concerted senior-executive attention can address. For example, at another telecom player, the consumer data-insights team learned that two things led to the most rapid spread of negative word of mouth about the company on socialmedia and microblogging sites: network outages and any perception by customers that the company had made false advertising claims about its products or network. Initially, the marketing and network organizations, rather than cooperate, blamed one another for the findings. Only when senior executives forced the two sides to work more closely together and build trust could the company capitalize on the information, by tailoring marketing messages to better explain new-product rollouts and network upgrades. Finally, we often see stresses on technical and analytic resources as a company seeks to capitalize on data and analytics. Thus, whether a company is planning a single, large initiative or multiple smaller ones, its senior team must stay mindful of the resources required (technological and otherwise) to shift quickly from pilot to "at scale" implementation. 19