11 May How Corporate Culture Impedes Data Innovation
BI and big data analytics tools are getting more sophisticated and comprehensive. Yet, some organizations are failing to derive full value from their data because their corporate cultures do not reflect a data-driven mindset. Here are the common cultural challenges standing in the way of big data innovation.
Competing in today’s data-intensive business environment requires unprecedented organizational agility and the ability to drive value from data. Although businesses have allocated significant resources to collecting and storing data, their abilities to analyze it, act upon it, and use it to unlock new opportunities are often stifled by cultural impediments.
While the need to update technology may be obvious, it may be less obvious that corporate cultures must also adapt to changing times. The necessary adjustments to business values, business practices, and leadership strategies can be uncomfortable and difficult to manage, especially when they conflict with the way the company operated in the past.
If your organization isn’t realizing the kind of value from its big data and analytics investments that it should be, the problem may have little to do with technology. Even with the most effective technologies in place, it’s possible to limit the value they provide by clinging to old habits.
Here are five ways that cultural issues can negatively affect data innovation:
1. The Vision And Culture Are At Odds
Data-driven aspirations and “business as usual” may well be at odds. What served a company well up to a certain point may not serve the company well going forward.
“You need to serve the customer as quickly as possible, and that may conflict with the way you measured labor efficiencies or productivity in the past,” explained Ken Gilbert, director of business analytics at the University of Tennessee Office of Research and Economic Development, in an interview with InformationWeek.
[ What matters more: Technology or people? Read Technology Is A Human Endeavor. ]
Companies able to realize the most benefit from their data are aligning their visions, corporate mindsets, performance measurement, and incentives to effect widespread cultural change. They are also more transparent than similar organizations, meaning that a wide range of personnel has visibility into the same data, and data is commonly shared among departments, or even across the entire enterprise.
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