| Danial Norjidi |
USING data to drive your business is very much the way forward, and building a culture of data can provide a number of benefits that can help businesses perform better.
This was highlighted by Vivek Ravindran, Director of Data Insights for Microsoft APAC, while speaking in a recent interview with the Bulletin.
Vivek was one of the invited speakers at Microsoft Brunei’s launching ceremony for its SQL Server 2016. He explained what it means to be truly data-driven.
“When we talk about organisations using data to drive their business, they’re effectively looking at a couple of things,” he said. “One is they have a prospective of data that is deemed to be the single version of truth, and it takes many, many years to come to that kind of state.”
“The second piece of that is you have an organisation that encourages data driven decision-making, which is about how you drive a culture. Do you reward, for instance, people who are more savvy? Do you invest in the readiness of training? From an organisational standpoint, do you have a culture of collaboration and sharing of insights?”
The latter, he explained, is where one division of a company is able to lean in and help another part of the company, based on insights. “Number three is you have an organisation that is a champion either in the leadership or in a separate programme office. So this is very analogous to Six Sigma.”
Six Sigma is a set of techniques and tools for process improvement, which aims to improve the quality of the output of a process by identifying and removing the causes of minimising variability in manufacturing and business processes.
Vivek Ravindran, Director of Data Insights, Microsoft APAC speaking during the recent SQL Server 2016 launch. – DANIAL NORJIDI
It uses a set of quality management methods and creates an infrastructure within the organisation comprising people who are experts in such methods.
“Many, many years ago when Six Sigma was the big buzzword and everything was becoming quality focused and quality conscious, what did organisations do? They set up a programme office called Six Sigma, which helped organisations embrace not just a process but a culture of quality. It takes time to build a culture of quality.
“Right now we’re at an inflection point as far as data is concerned, because we want organisations to embrace a culture of data using a data champion.
“Once you build a culture of data, then what happens is you have a smarter workforce which uses data to take insights, you have an organisation that is more collaborative because it shares these insights for a bigger purpose, and from a technology standpoint, you have an organisation that is not content with the data that you have internally but is constantly looking at data externally to develop fresher insight on the business.
“A favourite but oft-used example of that is ‘what happens when you’re a consumer put into the organisation?’, where you’re constantly looking for what people are saying about your product. Or, you have sensor data coming from your plant and machinery that you can then connect to your inventory system, because you have complete control of your supply chain.
“Those scenarios will come only when you think about those consciously, and that’s what we mean by having a data-driven business strategy,” he asserted.
Asked on how to differ between a company that simply collects numbers and another that sees the numbers’ true meaning, Ravindran said, “Two words: Hindsight vs foresight. Every organisation intuitively knows hindsight, and that’s how the industry has developed, because we look at the past data, see what happened and we then say, ‘hey, these are the things that are working so we’re going to continue to do that, and these are the things that are not working, so we’re going to stop or do less of that’.”
He highlighted that data can now allow organisations to have some foresight. “There are the organisations that are constantly seeking change and anticipating what’s going to happen.”
Vivek cited the example of ThyssenKrupp, a world leading elevator manufacturer.
They use data to predict the failure rate of elevators, thus allowing them to not need to have to stock parts in advance, but instead stock parts just in time.
“As the manufacturer, I can fly a person there before the event happens and do it as part of my routine maintenance rather than fly someone when the elevator breaks down because it’s more expensive for the customer, it’s a time consuming operation, there are service levels you need to upkeep, so on and so forth.”
Another example he cited was that of a company called Metromile. “Effectively what they are doing is disrupting the insurance industry.
“They have a device that plugs into the diagnostic port of a car, and what it does is capture all the data about the car, telemetry – basically engine, air pressure, etc – what it also does is it also captures the amount of miles you drive and the average speed you drive at.”
“Why is that data important? Because as an insurer, now I can charge you premiums based on how you drive and only when you drive rather than just giving you a flat insurance payment.
“So it’s upending the traditional view of an old industry like insurance by being disruptive about it. This is conceptually to help illustrate how data is transforming traditional businesses.”
“So it starts with that simple question. That’s the difference between just looking at the numbers and looking past them,” he added.
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