In God we trust, all others must bring data, says
W. Edward Deming, cementing the invaluable
place of data in modern day business operations.
But data gathering and mining is not fun. It is an
almost endless process of recording and
reviewing files, facts and figures.
However, no matter how mundane data may
seem, it is priceless. Data is an aggregate of
individual and collective experiences with great
insights. Everything a person does is valuable
data. And with it, businesses cannot only predict
customer needs, they could surpass expectations.
Hence, to say data is the most valuable tool for
business growth is an understatement. In fact, if
cash flow is the life of a business, data is
steroids!
But in Africa, there is an assumption that
businesses do not generate data. As a result,
data paucity is a reality on the continent. This is
false. It is also unrealistic. Every business, small
or big, generates data one way or the other.
Every activity within a business – every
purchase, complain, payment, return – all
constitute data. The problem, however, lies in
the inability of businesses to effectively capture,
analyze, and use the data.
"From Data to Money"
It is quite disturbing to find companies sitting on
a massive database and not leveraging it or
turning it to money. From telecoms companies
to financial institutions, ecommerce and retail
among others most business are guilty of this –
they capture data but do nothing with it a la
Nokia, which had a huge research and
development department. Arguably, if they had
analyzed their data properly they could have
been better prepared by anticipating new trends
and behavior of customers on mobile.
The truth is, for businesses to thrive in a digital
world, investment must be made not only to
capture data, but to analyze and secure
actionable insights. This can be as simple as
looking through past purchase records to
understand the behavior of customers, changes
that have occurred, and how their expectations
have become either simpler or more complex.
Also, setting up focus group activities and
studying how customers use your product – what
features make them frown, smile, makes them
confused (this is particularly useful for
businesses whose products are in pilot stage),
etc. could go a long way to revealing crucial
insights on customer behavior.
"Data is Useful for Every Part of Business"
Data makes a company tick. While a company’s
products team need data to improve on the
current product and services, its sales team
thrive on data for go-to-market strategies and
expansion. Marketing also need data to measure
the performance of current marketing mix and
optimize it across all marketing vehicles and
other touch points. For human resource
managers, they need to know which passive
candidate will be a good fit for an organization
and which employee is likely to make a move in
the next 3-6 months. Data helps with that. Data
helps a business stay ready, anticipate and get
ahead of competition.
For businesses considering data-driven growth
strategies, a good place to start is answering the
‘WHY’ question: why are we capturing data?
What problem are we trying to solve with data?
What would do we use it for? Do we want to
efficiently predict and effectively meet and
surpass customer expectation? Are we trying to
efficiently predict and effectively meet and
surpass customer expectation? Do we want to
identify other business opportunities and
improve our business model?
Having a good idea of the ‘WHY’ helps in
answering the ‘HOW’. What data points do we
need to capture? How do we capture and
analyze the data? What tools should we use for
analysis? However, there must be a clear
objective for data gathering, otherwise the
wealth of insights data analysis could bring
would be just a dream.
Finally, to paraphrase Michael Lewis in his book
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game ,
people operate with beliefs and biases; to the
extent you can eliminate both, and replace them
with data, you gain clear advantage. In context,
decision makers, sometimes, tend to use insights
from already analyzed data to “confirm”
assumptions. They panel-beat and twist insights
to favour their beliefs. Such practices are wrong.
Decision makers must not allow prejudices and
biases interfere with the data-driven decision
making process.
Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Eniola
Moronfolu, a digital transformation professional
and Mara Mentor, who helps businesses make
effective and efficient use of digital tools and
technology to understand, respond to and exceed
customer expectation. She shares insights on
how and why companies need to invest more in
data capturing and analysis, and how acting on
data insights to drives growth.
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