In this blog, guest author Brian Harris, Chief Product & Marketing Officer, Western Union Business Solutions, discusses the role of culture in becoming a data-driven organization.
Adopting a data-driven culture—and changing the mindsets of stakeholders to use data to drive decisions—may be the biggest obstacle you face, but also the most transformative. Moving through the various stages of digital maturity means making strides in several key areas of the organization. But moving through the various stages of digital maturity means you are making strides in several key areas of the organization. And culture is one thing that needs to be transformed in order for businesses to truly leverage the digital intelligence available to them.
Three points for catalyzing an organization’s cultural transformation include:
- Create an identity and purpose
- Advance your technological capabilities
- Develop evangelists within the sales organization
Educating an organization to rely on customer and prospect data to drive the way you deliver value necessitates a change in mind-set:
- Enable marketing and sales to work closer together
- Discuss the philosophy behind such a change, in addition to the logistics
- Reassure stakeholders the role technology capability plays in changing both culture and performance
Though most marketers today want to start making a shift towards being a data-driven organization, few really have a handle on how to make it happen:
- Involve the right stakeholders
- Be unrelenting in the organization’s commitment to customer outcomes
- Transform data into a learning opportunity
As a marketer, you are tasked with creating a sense of identity and purpose using this data-driven technology in order to serve your customers better. Address your brand identity and purpose. Connect it to your ultimate goals and when you’ve got the strategic and technological infrastructure in place, devote yourself to getting people–all of the people in the organization–to understand why you’re making that journey.
