To Be Forewarned Is to Be Forearmed
Issue 64: July 14, 2022
The savvy, experienced executives are curious, informed, and naturally anticipate the future, not catch up to it. That usually requires these individuals to step out of their comfort zones and confront ambiguity and change head-on. They support their teams and coach them to think critically and stretch to maintain high performance, both individually and for the organization. This may sound obvious, but in our experience, we have encountered top leaders who are uncomfortable with the lightning-speed changes in the marketplace and insecure about their knowledge gaps – especially in data and analytics.
As we have shared, new data privacy laws are complex and can have draconian consequences if ignored. Our counsel with clients is to help them navigate the policies and establish a robust data and analytics practice to better manage and control their first-party data. Many of the strategies for becoming data-driven are hidden in plain sight; you simply need to change your thinking to recognize the assets you already have. Remember, the ultimate goal is to give your stakeholders what they want and need, not what you think they want.
Data, managed effectively, provides a rich trove of insights into behavior, intent, purchase patterns, and preferences. A solid data program will also reveal how you can grow your revenues and value currency by delivering what your customers want rather than developing products and services based on instinct and intuition. That said, the challenges going forward will be adapting your current data practice to the new laws protecting privacy. It will take a learning curve and some innovative thinking about how to better know, understand, and serve your customers based on data.
Above all, it starts and ends with the skills, talents, and mindsets of your workforce. Any change needs to be introduced carefully, mindful of people’s natural resistance to anything new. Once you have critical mass support from your workers, you can activate data programs that will serve your stakeholders, protect their privacy, and build your business.
We’re here to help. Reach out to learn more. And in the meantime. we offer you more summer good reads to make you smarter and better prepared to compete in the marketplace controlled by new data standards.
An Executive Playbook for the Critical Path to Establishing Deep and Meaningful First-Party Data
Regardless of where an organization is on its path to becoming data-driven, the entire ecosystem has changed. Transformation to an actionable, transparent data-driven business model is critical to addressing the complexity of compliance, personalization, and privacy. Mastery of data is complex considering system limitations, lack of skillsets, and/or lack of understanding of the definition, value, and actionability of customer data. Read more …
Is Your Organization Prepared to Establish a First-Party Data Strategy?
Organizations using anonymous data to drive decision-making are only looking at one loop of data. To drive real value, concentric data circles are needed to inform brand value perceptions and actions that trigger conversion, deepen value, and identify current or desired sets of users within the targeted market. Read more …
How Market Orientation Drives Success
Authentic market orientation reveals the truth about transformation and how human factors and behaviors impact the organizational system. It isn’t about “marketing,” it isn’t about “sales,” and it isn’t about “product management.” It is focused on the human elements of an organization-wide system that must cohesively align for a shared purpose. Read more …
Recognizing patterns enables us to predict and expect what is coming and what the impacts may be. Every decision both professionally and in life has upstream and downstream impacts and consequences. We often make decisions just like we communicate. Using our knowledge, values, and life experiences. Decision-making in that regard is highly subjective and comes without the recognition of gaps in knowledge or the use of critical thinking to fill in the gaps and understand all that is or may be impacted or affected by a decision. Read more …
Decision-Making in Digital Age
We seek others to gain recommendations, insight into how others make decisions and on what basis, and to confirm our own thinking. We have evolved this behavior as most of us personally lack enough information to consistently form confidence-based conclusions. Our defaults are to maintain our baseline behaviors. However, we would argue that now that we have access to so many levels of data, it’s time to change our own operational default mental constructs. Read more …
Get “The Truth about Transformation”
The 2040 construct to change and transformation. What’s the biggest reason organizations fail? They don’t honor, respect, and acknowledge the human factor. We have compiled a playbook for organizations of all sizes to consider all the elements that comprise change and we have included some provocative case studies that illustrate how transformation can quickly derail.
