When Data Obscures the Customer

MI, analytics, data mining, stats, KPI’s, insights… 

Whatever your line of business calls it, you are undoubtedly surrounded on a daily or weekly basis by key information designed to help you ascertain the current performance of that business or various operational areas; and also to aid you in decision making and identifying change and improvement opportunities 

But what happens when you become overloaded with data? To the extent that it starts to obscure that decision making and continuous improvement process? 

Unchecked data growth and expansion is a risk that more businesses, both large and small, should be wary of and build appropriate checks and balances around. Why? Primarily because, in many instances, the increasing breadth of capture points available, across a multitude of online systems and interactive touch points, is creating circumstance where the sheer explosion of produced data can occlude a clear view of the business. More importantly, a surfeit of unnecessary data points then also obscures the underlying needs and demands of your customers, limiting the ability to respond or plan efficiently.

Just because you have the data does not automatically assign it value. 

Context is key 

Too often, MI and production analysts are positioned too remote from the heart of the business operation to maintain a contextual framework for the data they are producing. It is in this environment that production can start to veer from the happy path of fostering insight into ad infinitum production without change; or worse produced simply for production’s sake, where time is then increasingly wasted in the sift for value and any relevant insight. 

This is no slight on the analysts and reporting depts.-they are doing what they are charged to do- interrogating and presenting data that results from the activity and the systems around them. Instead it is an overall failing that the strategy and vision for the business is not regularly sustained as the baseline for report production as much as it is for performance. Or indeed that too many differing focal points and competing demands lead to a cascade of incongruous reporting to a widening and not always relevant audience.

The ultimate result is that ultimately the people the data was originally intended to inform and assist find themselves assailed by an increasing barrage of non-contextual information that then costs time to sort and understand. 

Which brings us back to why we need data in the first place- Numbers alone do not constitute MI, context is key, and if our ‘customer’ is suddenly not part of that context then necessary business clarity is lost. 

For instance, across all industries and sectors, customer complaints offer both the biggest challenge but also some of the most relevant data to inform tactical and strategic change plans. Yet while number and volume information can indicate an issue exists or that improvement is needed, without the underlying thematic capture of the nature and trends of those instances, the data provides no structure for continuous improvement and positive change. 

As another example, in managing production or SLA’s, if the context of the desired customer journey or underlying process outcomes is lost, then completion timescales, cycle times, or any arbitrary lines of success/failure, have no meaning. 

It is imperative therefore that for business efficiency, response, and positive change, that data production is managed, controlled, and delivered to naturally adjusted business and customer goals and value statements, and ultimately provides an agreed view of the world that informs decision making, not occludes it in a sea of integers. 

Centres of data production and centres of customer production/output must therefore continually work together to ensure that common goals and languages are spoken and understood over time…and most importantly that redundant data is culled as required. 

Ultimately if the data is not delivering insight into your relationship with your customers then what value is it bringing? 

And, following basic lean principles, if its contributing no value to your customers then you have to question why you are using it?