5BIGGESTDATA CHALLENGES

FOR OPERATIONS &FINANCE EXECUTIVES

We recently held a discussion with several seniordecision makers and C-Suite executives inoperational and finance roles in these industries:

Government

Healthcare

Mass Media

Entertainment

Publishing

Telecommunications

Banking & Finance

Postal Services

These are the common keychallenges we found

Operational Decision MakersNeed More Consistency

For operations, storing and using the right data isunanimously important.

The key challenge is keeping data from differentbusiness areas consistent under one single touch point.Oftentimes it’s the quality of the data that becomesconflicting.

Focus your messaging arounddata consistency and singular

touch points.

How can you help this audience win over boardroommembers who still aren’t sure whether to follow theirhearts or their heads?

Start by building trust on an emotional level, then movetowards the business case. Get these executives onboard by helping them do this without threateningother areas of their business.

Data-Driven Challenges forFinancial Decision Makers

Similar to Operations - finance execs feel the need forone touch point for all data across the entireorganisation.

Another challenge they face is using data to back theirstories up when presenting to emotionally drivendecision makers. They need methods of using this datato logically enforce emotionally-driven stories.

Cater to more emotionallydriven executives

Some ares of business do not wish to see financial data.Therefore, finance executives repackage and position itfor the more emotionally-driven areas of the business.

Create content around how best to do this. When usingdata to get boardroom buy-in, it must support anemotionally-driven story in order to be persuasive.

Now, here are the 5 challengeswe found trending across allexecutives in the discussion:

Finding the onesource of truth

A current and common theme shared among executivesis finding the right source of data. The term commonlyused to describe this from a data perspective is “the onetruth”.

One executive from the telecomms industry expressedconcern in managing teams who bring in different andconflicting numbers for an attributed data point.

1.

Balancing emotions vs.data-driven arguments

The importance to lead with good data is understood,but there is a belief in needing to be emotionally drivenfor more complex topics.

The focus is currently on using data to measure andoptimise the customer journey. One challenge is to pullquantitative AND qualitative data together to makethose decisions.

2 .

Managing emotionally-lead arguments

A challenge that was common among finance executiveswas using and storing data in a convincing way at theboardroom level.

It’s a matter of using that data in order to guide peopletowards the conclusion they want them to reach. In thiscase, it’s a matter of using data to be persuasive.

3.

Using data to buildtrust

Data can only go so far when the stakes are high. In anexample from the healthcare industry, when presentingdata to doctors, the doctors will always win if it’s amatter of life-or-death.

Where is the middle ground between data and emotionwhere emotion is always going to win?

4.

Speeding up go-to-market strategies

This theme was backed-up by an operations leader froma US based company. They see the UK as a small yetinnovative market. Because of this, using data toquantify decisions is key in order to convince the rest ofthe business to follow them.

When it comes to entering new markets, data to helpinform key decisions is paramount.

5.

CONCLUSION

There are severaloverarching themes here...

...but the biggest one is therelationship betweenstorytelling and data.

The marketing opportunity is inenabling executives to use data to

arrive at a desired conclusion atthe boardroom level.

Tie this with your value propositionand you should be able to guide

them through your sales cycle andconvert into opportunities.

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