DATA STRATEGY - April 2008
Business Intelligence |
Richard Lees, Chairman, Database Group, comments on investment in data to drive intelligence.
Business intelligence spans a number of silos – marketing, sales, operations, channel, IT, finance, distribution, capital maintenance etc. Traditionally, customer and prospect data responsibility has been restricted to the confines of sales and marketing, leaving the value of customer data severely limited within the precincts of one area of the business. However, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the quality of customer information affects areas beyond merely marketing and campaign performance.
After all, data relates to customers, sales reps, territories, product development, channels, call centre performance etc and all of this data plays a role in understanding business performance. However, not all business intelligence systems have access to a single repository of such data. Whilst it would be eminently desirable to have a single view of the customer comprising a single view of channel, single view of sales performance, applications made, new products etc, this is unrealistic in the majority of business environments and certainly out of scope for sales and marketing alone where most customer data initiatives are driven.
Business practice in most organisations can be reduced to a handful of core processes. Whilst these are predominantly silo owned, a number of procedures, including marketing, quality and customer service, will span the entire business. These “nucleus” elements, whilst managed and budgeted independently, require ‘global’investment, leveraging them to a board level item in terms of business intelligence. Data quality is increasingly becoming such a process and it is those businesses that see the true value of data in this way that will derive the benefit across the entire business.
For example, organisations like Tesco derive value from investment in data in a number of areas that haven’t, as yet, featured with many of their rivals – capital and maintenance spend priorities, product pricing, store ranging, new product procurement and staff development, to name but a few. Decisions made using data in any one of these elements can potentially eclipse the scale of benefits derived from effective use in customer development or the related promotional activities etc. In essence, by relegating data solely for sales and marketing purposes, the impact of its use for real business planning is likely to be massively reduced. For real business intelligence across an organisation, the investment in data should be a board item – approved, directed and tracked and cementing data value as the root of more than only marketing decisions.
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