On the same page

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These days, you see a lot of companies throw around buzzwords such as ‘data-driven’ and ‘customer-centric’. We know data-centric companies are more successful, so it’s no surprise that it’s something for which a lot of companies are aiming – and it seems they aren’t doing too badly, either. An annual survey of leading global companies highlights this progress, with a huge 62% increase in companies appointing a chief data officer, or equivalent, over the past decade. Having said this, the report emphasises that it is too early to celebrate.

One of the main reasons people feel businesses struggle with achieving this idyllic state of data-centricity isn’t technology – the tech is there, ready and waiting. It’s the people: 91% of those surveyed claimed the culture, and people, in their organisations were the greatest challenge in becoming data-driven. Research by Realise Unlimited pinpoints the areas in which UK companies struggle: a lack of training, a lack of business understanding, and data teams not working closely enough with business teams, all make the list.

Working in insight, and in data specifically, we see these challenges every day in some form or another. Whether it’s insight reports lacking the magical ‘so what’, or poorly articulated business challenges leaving too much room for interpretation, we’ve all struggled with the consequences of these typical situations.

In my experience, one of the main issues underpinning all of this is communication – ensuring the key message is retained and understood across the entire lifespan of the project. For the communication between teams to be effective, we need to ensure everyone is speaking the same language and that nothing gets lost in translation.

I’m not, by any means, advocating that we should all become fluent in each other’s professions. We can’t expect market researchers to be expert copywriters, analysts to be expert marketeers, or insight teams to be product designers. Every profession has their own strength and that should be celebrated.

I am merely suggesting that we should all learn each other’s lingo, so that we can talk to each other. The data and analytics industry, in general, has a lot of work to do to increase its understanding of wider business contexts. Similarly, wider business has a lot of work to do to finesse the shaping of a brief, ensuring it’s grounded in the issue at hand and that the commercial context is communicated properly.

One of the first questions I always ask when I’m about to prepare a document for a new audience is ‘Who are they?’ We know it’s essential to tailor your content to your audience, so it’s essential to understand more about that audience. What do they know, what don’t they know? Where do their interests lie? What are their goals and expectations, their hopes, questions, worries, hypotheses? What’s their background – where have they come from?

More importantly, where are they going – what will they be doing next with the information you’re about to give them? Do they want the nitty gritty of the data, or do they just want the overarching business solution?

Once you know who they are, you can work out what your aim is. What’s the message you’re trying to convey? How do you want your audience to react to your information? What do you want them to think and feel? More importantly, what do you want them to do as a result of speaking to you? What will they know that they didn’t know before, and what do you want them to do about it?

Make sure you’ve given them the tools they need to jump right into those actions. The tools may be a detailed evidence pack with all the information on every technique used, your accuracy scores, your significance tests and your sample framework. It may be a one-page summary. It could even be a few bullet points – this is what you should do and why.

If you know who you’re speaking to, what they want to know, what you want to tell them, your aim and theirs, it’s a case of putting the pieces together. What is the most efficient way to convey your message to that audience? What potential barriers might you face in this information exchange and how can you overcome them?

Make sure you’re speaking the same language so that the key message will be retained and understood across the entire customer journey, from inception through to delivery.

Bethan Blakeley is analytics director at Boxclever