Use data insights to change the way you run your business

If you always ask the same questions, you will keep going back to the same source for answers. By identifying new approaches to your data, you can boost innovation and transformation. That’s why enterprise execs need to spend a little time on client governance.

How should the CXO be involved in client governance?
Not by getting into the technical nitty-gritty, of course – you probably wouldn’t want the COO of a large enterprise to come running to fix the deployment of Windows 10.
Instead, the exec should get involved in the insights infrastructure data can yield – provided the organization knows how to extract it, and what to look for. And focus should be on figuring out what questions to ask in the first place…
Which questions should you ask, to get the answers that will boost your business? That’s probably the most difficult exercise of them all…

Copy-paste stops innovation
We’ve probably all done it the wrong way – copy-pasted an old project plan or budget, and updated it with the tasks and posts relevant to the job at hand. Sometimes, that’s a very efficient way of working. No need to reinvent the wheel every time, right? But most of the time, “copy-paste” stops progress and innovation, and halts the transformation that may be just what is required for your organization to adapt, thrive, grow – and survive.
You need to approach every new job from new angles. You need to dig in a different location, to see what precious metals lie beneath the surface of “business as usual”. Because if you always ask the same questions, you and your staff will keep going back to the same source for answers. And if you only look down the mineshaft that’s already been dug, where lights, rails and ventilation are already in place, chances are you won’t discover anything new.
You won’t know what’s 100 feet to the left. And certainly not what lies buried in the next mountain.

Dig in and flip it around
To discover the questions, you need to dig in to the data, flip it around and follow where it leads you. You need to get second opinions and input from all parts of the business on what kind of insight they could use to improve their output.
It’s an ongoing process – you need to understand the potential of your infrastructure, and to keep asking questions: What types of data are available, how can they be correlated, and what is the potential. Much of that process depends on your ability to be openminded, and prepared to shift your perspective and preconceptions – you have to listen and have an enquiring mind.

Most likely, the answers to most of the questions the business can come up with are already in your infrastructure – you just never knew you could, or should, be looking for them.

Find out more about transforming data into gold, with Insight Analytics

Read last week’s post: “Pots of pure gold hidden in your infrastructure”
Next week’s post: “How do you know which data is gold, and which is irrelevant?”