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You are here: Home / analytics / Thou Shalt Not be Data-Driven

Thou Shalt Not be Data-Driven

March 31, 2015 by Ralf Haberich Leave a Comment

Have you ever thought about the future of your title or position? Are you sure your company is ready for the data-dominated future?

Digital is everywhere and digital will be everywhere and data will be everywhere. And even beyond. The quote of a data-driven company is stressed often through social media or other channels and in daily business. A company has to be data-driven to understand the relation between different channels and actions, even between departments and profit.

Data-Driven vs. Data-Dominated

The data-driven aspect is no longer reaching out far enough, considering the future of the digital economy. The company of the future will not be data-driven, but definitely data-dominated. Saying out loud the word of “domination” can include positive and negative aspects.

And this goes for the data-dominated scenario as well. If a company follows the data-aspects in all details, it will for sure achieve higher value for revenue and profit. It might also cause damages in personal relations and harm managers currently being responsible for marketing campaigns and company future. Therefore, these managers need to act on the data-domination not to get lost behind.

In order to have the right & relevant set up within the company I created the following Intelligence Management Model. It will guide the upper management through upcoming challenges, digitalisation of their business and open discussions on a change management process due to existing or incoming data. The reader will acknowledge that data is not the new oil, but the new air. You need to have the data, if your company wants to breathe, wants to survive. Without data the company will start to suffer and the missing oxygen will cause a non-positive future.

Data is not the New Oil – it is the New Air

Looking at the setup of this Intelligence Management Model I defined four geographical fields of data-competence:

Image of four fields of data competence within a quarterd square

  • Digital Power Users
  • Digital Weak Followers
  • Digital Strong Learners
  • Digital Decision Makers

All of these fields are different in terms of technical competence in combination with a visionary and strategical performance.

Four Types of Digital Characters

The Digital Power

The User is a pure technical associated person with a very strong technical and/or mathematical background. Very much capable of diving into the details of analytical and technical aspects of a subject, but less able to see the bigger picture for the company or for future aspects within the business eco-system.

The Digital Weak Follower

This is a person that does not put enough effort in keeping the pace of the digital revolution all around the business aspects and the personal job profile aspects within his or her professional surrounding. Therefore, the ability to solve analytical questions or reaching out to business discussions around the future of a company is both not the ideal place for this person.

The Digital Strong Learner

This person understood and is able to perform on data and analytics, but is currently not enough related to those topics. Smart enough and educated enough, this person will catch up. The strong benefits of this profile are the knowledge around strategy and company or department vision, being able to pro-actively manage on future challenges.

The Digital Decision Maker

That is a perfect combination of technical competence and visionary smartness. A profile very hard to find and needing lots of experience in both fields. Experience meaning a deep understanding, not necessarily a long-time career in both fields. Aiming for the section of technical competence and strategic expertise is a key aspect of this model. Both aspects show the ideal profile of the future manager, knowing that IT and Marketing also will grow together more and more.

If we agree that the Digital Decision Maker (for example the Chief Digital Officer) is key in these profiles for the data-future, all other characters would aim to achieve this ideal skill combination.

What about Digital Maturity?

This Intelligence Management Model can now be spiced up with an additional aspect: Digital Intelligence Maturity. Following this thought, it can be defined which profile has strong analytical knowledge and the capability of being able to understand and solve Business Intelligence related questions or requirements.

Image of quartered square with circles indicating  levels of knowledge within management

The circles of the managers and employees in the chart above represent the actual status of technical knowledge, visionary and strategical competence associated with digital intelligence maturity.

Looking at this scenario it is obvious to see that profiles have to change and will change in the future. This brings many positive aspects with it, meaning more competence on more shoulders in order to act faster, decide smarter and drive profit quicker. Most likely, the characters will all (try to) move into the top right corner, meaning Digital Decision Makers. This is a very good aspect and would transform the company and the managers into relevant players within the future market. As you can also see, the circles vary in their size, meaning the pure digital intelligence maturity will either have to increase or will decrease, depending on profile and job description.

Movement of digital intelligence maturity across management positions

Given these positive aspects, also a challenging phase within the company moves along: internal competition, reliable internal transfer of technical knowledge, (too) narrow focus of digital strategies etc.

Image of new positions and profiles popping up in this digital, data-dominated landscape

We will also be observing new positions and profiles popping up in this digital, data-dominated landscape. As shown above, technical analysts as well as Chief Visionary Officers will join the stage of performance.

The future is challenging and very exciting. You better start getting data-dominated.

Filed Under: analytics, business, CDO, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), data analysis, Management, marketing, Uncategorized

About Ralf Haberich

Ralf Haberich, Managing Director/Vorstandsvorsitzender at CRM Partners AG, is responsible for the Management of the DACH region with special focus on sales, marketing & partner management.
Ralf is a senior executive with proven success in customer acquisition, profit & market expansion and international sales and marketing strategy. Consistently builds internal and external relationships to assist in maximizing company success. Extensive understanding of technology platforms, digital business and entrepreneurship.
Specialties: global business development, digital marketing, new customer acquisition, revenue & profit growth, digital intelligence, customer engagement and leadership.
Ralf Haberich is a featured blogger at "Intelligence | Europe" and "Web Analytics World" as well as the author of the German digital intelligence-book "FUTURE DIGITAL BUSINESS".
He lives with his family near Frankfurt owning and passionately supporting a semi-professional road cycling-team (haberich cycling crew).
Connect with Ralf on Twitter.

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