11. 11
Success:
Find an advocate in front line -
if a good colleague adopting tech others will follow
Personalization – you have to be relevant
Customer/colleague engagement -
people like me app/ smart meter app to drive usage
Collaborative cross team with same goal
Develop a holistic business case - Measure actual benefits but
realistic, not all are standalone ROI enhanced but collectively w
Value exchange critical for data capture –
the answers in the data
Bring analytics close to business decision makers –
develop tools for business to understand
What is the HiPPO Effect?
Avinash Kaushik was the first to coin the term HiPPO in his book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day. When a HiPPO is in the room and a difficult decision needs to be made but there’s not data or data analysis to determine the right course of action one way or another, the group will often defer to the judgement of the HiPPO. HiPPOs usually have the most experience and power in the room. Once their opinion is out, voices of dissent are usually shut out and in some cases, based on the culture, others fear speaking out against the HiPPO’s direction even if they disagree with it.
When Ron Johnson, former head of retail at Apple who was responsible for the highly profitable Apple Stores, took over as CEO at J.C. Penney, he suffered from the HiPPO Effect. Without reviewing the existing data or investing in new data about the very different retail store he was now leading, he went full throttle ahead on his strategy for the department store chain. When his strategy was launched and he checked in to see if it was working, few had the courage to give him the unvarnished truth and be labeled as a resistor. Needless to say, his strategy wasn’t succeeding with J.C. Penney’s customers.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jc-penneys-controversial-former-ceo-is-unsure-if-the-retailer-will-be-around-in-5-years-145259863.html
The Harvard Business Review found that while 80 percent of survey respondents rely on data in their roles and 73 percent rely on data to make decisions, 84 percent still said managerial judgment is a factor when making key decisions.
If you are the HiPPO, follow the example of Alfred Sloan, long-term president, chairman and CEO of General Motors who “had a strong belief about making decisions; they shouldn’t be made until someone had expressed why the ‘preferred’ option might not be the right one.” Invite disagreement; make yours a culture that you seek multiple opinions and even ask someone to play devil’s advocate prior to an important decision being made.
Leading corporations seem to be failing in their efforts to become data-driven. This is a central and alarming finding of NewVantage Partners’ 2019 Big Data and AI Executive Survey, published earlier this month. The survey participants comprised 64 c-level technology and business executives representing very large corporations such as American Express, Ford Motor, General Electric, General Motors, and Johnson & Johnson.
Here are some of the alarming results from the survey:
72% of survey participants report that they have yet to forge a data culture
69% report that they have not created a data-driven organization
53% state that they are not yet treating data as a business asset
52% admit that they are not competing on data and analytics.
Further, the percentage of firms identifying themselves as being data-driven has declined in each of the past 3 years – from 37.1% in 2017 to 32.4% in 2018 to 31.0% this year.
These sobering results and declines come in spite of increasing investment in big data and AI initiatives. 92% of survey respondents reported that the pace of their big data and AI investments is accelerating; 88% report a greater urgency to invest in big data and AI; and 75% cite a fear of disruption as a motivating factor for big data/AI investment. In addition, 55% of companies reported that their investments in big data and AI now exceed $50MM, up from 40% just last year. Further, companies are building organizations to manage their big data/AI initiatives, with a rise in the appointment of Chief Data Officers from 12% in 2012 to 68% of organizations having created and staffed this role in the past 7 years.
Data strategy is the biggest resource in gaining a competitive edge against other companies, according to the study. By ignoring data or treating it as unimportant, business leaders do their companies a huge disservice when it comes to staying ahead of the game. Businesses might be investing significant money into data capture, but then drop the ball when it comes time to actually use that data. Instead, business leaders need to focus on figuring out how to take the data and boil it down into easily digestible formats for internal use.
A college degree at the start of a working career does not answer the need for the continuous acquisition of new skills, especially as career spans are lengthening. Vocational training is good at giving people job-specific skills, but those, too, will need to be updated over and over again during a career lasting decades. – The Economist
Fortunately it doesn’t take much time or money to boost your skills to make you more competitive. You just need to have a strategy for ensuring that your knowledge and skills are always up-to-date. Even if you aren’t in a technical job, technical skills like software and social media help everyone. Creative skills like graphic design and photography are also useful in a variety of jobs. Skills like project management, team leadership, and conflict resolution are critical to anyone’s success. In short, knowledge work is an area that will continue to grow; career options will become more varied and require ongoing education to remaining current.