Data Driven Company

"We are a data driven company"

I bet you have heard the above sentences infinite number of times. The speakers often mean that they have processes instituted for decisions to be taken based on facts and hard data rather than pure intuition.

My job entails selling customer analytics solutions. Analytics is dependent on the richness of data available to be mined. The availability of data is often the toughest challenge. Since most transactions systems were designed for just easing the transactions, they only collect information necessary for completing the transactions. During the time of selecting transaction systems, analytics was nowhere in sight for the evaluation criteria. So it is no surprise that data needed for analytics are not available within a company.

But what often surprises me, or let me say amuses me, is the attempt by the clients to run the "best" analytics on the available data. I was shocked to hear from one senior executive the statement "but all we have is 3 fields on customer data". This executive wanted a solution which will work on the 3 fields and not demand additional data. He claimed that his customer did not give more data.

Now why should a customer part with any more information than is needed? Let me illustrate this by my personal experience with buying automobile insurance in USA and India. India has a standard rate card. So I am not enticed nor am interested in giving any more information than is mandated for the insurance cover. Whereas, in the USA, I know that certain information, like marriage and family will help me get a lower premium. So I am happy to part with that information. I asked the same question to this execution "What has the customer to gain by giving you additional information? Why should he give you additional information?".

The company could have provided additional or special privileges to the customer based on certain information. This would have enabled them to get more information from the customer. The cost of this information could have been justified by the richer analytics that could be run on the customer data.

Just stated that we have limited data is not an excuse. It reflect poor foresight of the company. You cannot let the limited data drive your future activities. You need to enrich your data collection to meet future business needs.