Exchanges with Hitachi Solutions — The Podcast

6 Key Considerations for Successful Business Transformation Lead to Your Data Strategy

April 24, 2024 https://global.hitachi-solutions.com Season 4 Episode 11
6 Key Considerations for Successful Business Transformation Lead to Your Data Strategy
Exchanges with Hitachi Solutions — The Podcast
More Info
Exchanges with Hitachi Solutions — The Podcast
6 Key Considerations for Successful Business Transformation Lead to Your Data Strategy
Apr 24, 2024 Season 4 Episode 11
https://global.hitachi-solutions.com

Your Thought Leaders for this Episode:

  • Dave Horstein, Host, Senior Advisory Consultant
  • Greg Gant, Vice President of Corporate Development
  • Hannah Farley, Vice President of Advisory Services

Overview

Constructing a business-led data strategy is the topic today! Based on customer interactions, we discuss the need for strategy alignment with overall business goals and outcomes for your enterprise. The inefficiencies of non value-added data work and the lack of trust in data among managers was discussed with an aim to address why data initiatives fail and how to correct course.

Key points of discussion include:

  • The need for a business-led roadmap and how it must tie back to business outcomes.
  • Fundamental necessity of having a talent strategy that aligns future states of organization with skill sets required for a robust data strategy.
  • The importance of an efficient operating model for data sharing within the organization.
  • Choosing the right technology solutions to leverage data and align with organizational goals.
  • The imperatives of data management and governance to bolster confidence in organizational data.
  • The essential nature of adoption and scaling, ensuring organizational capability to harness data effectively.

Action Items

  1. Business Outcome Alignment: Enforce sincere business outcome alignment amongst leadership to avoid future derailment of data initiatives.
  2. Current State Assessment: Performing a neutral current state assessment to accurately identify opportunities and discrepancies without biases.
  3. Create a Roadmap Framework: Develop a strategic vision with clear business outcomes, timelines, resource allocation, and ownership for various initiatives.
  4. People Plan Development: Ensuring the integration of a comprehensive people plan to support each phase of the data initiative, focusing on talent management and engagement.
  5. Technology and Process Review: Reassess the technology and processes with a focus on ultimate business goals, not just technological advancements themselves.
  6. Education and Enablement Program: Implementing a program to educate and enable employees, ensuring the governance model works effectively across the board.

Summary

The meeting successfully outlined critical considerations for a business transformation through a data-led approach. It highlighted that technology, while vital, is insufficient without strategic Alignment with business outcomes, supportive leadership, and an engaged and skilled workforce. The discussion confirmed the need to establish clear visions, leverage Alignment workshops like OGSM, and embed tangible value creation in roadmaps, with overarching emphasis on the critical role of people in the adoption and endorsement of any data strategy. The session concluded with a call to check out further material on the web at global.hitachi-solutions.com.

You might be interested in our upcoming webinar...
AI Readiness Roadmap: Guide to Unlocking Value with a Sound Data Strategy – Hitachi Solutions (hitachi-solutions.com)

global.hitachi-solutions.com

Show Notes Transcript

Your Thought Leaders for this Episode:

  • Dave Horstein, Host, Senior Advisory Consultant
  • Greg Gant, Vice President of Corporate Development
  • Hannah Farley, Vice President of Advisory Services

Overview

Constructing a business-led data strategy is the topic today! Based on customer interactions, we discuss the need for strategy alignment with overall business goals and outcomes for your enterprise. The inefficiencies of non value-added data work and the lack of trust in data among managers was discussed with an aim to address why data initiatives fail and how to correct course.

Key points of discussion include:

  • The need for a business-led roadmap and how it must tie back to business outcomes.
  • Fundamental necessity of having a talent strategy that aligns future states of organization with skill sets required for a robust data strategy.
  • The importance of an efficient operating model for data sharing within the organization.
  • Choosing the right technology solutions to leverage data and align with organizational goals.
  • The imperatives of data management and governance to bolster confidence in organizational data.
  • The essential nature of adoption and scaling, ensuring organizational capability to harness data effectively.

Action Items

  1. Business Outcome Alignment: Enforce sincere business outcome alignment amongst leadership to avoid future derailment of data initiatives.
  2. Current State Assessment: Performing a neutral current state assessment to accurately identify opportunities and discrepancies without biases.
  3. Create a Roadmap Framework: Develop a strategic vision with clear business outcomes, timelines, resource allocation, and ownership for various initiatives.
  4. People Plan Development: Ensuring the integration of a comprehensive people plan to support each phase of the data initiative, focusing on talent management and engagement.
  5. Technology and Process Review: Reassess the technology and processes with a focus on ultimate business goals, not just technological advancements themselves.
  6. Education and Enablement Program: Implementing a program to educate and enable employees, ensuring the governance model works effectively across the board.

Summary

The meeting successfully outlined critical considerations for a business transformation through a data-led approach. It highlighted that technology, while vital, is insufficient without strategic Alignment with business outcomes, supportive leadership, and an engaged and skilled workforce. The discussion confirmed the need to establish clear visions, leverage Alignment workshops like OGSM, and embed tangible value creation in roadmaps, with overarching emphasis on the critical role of people in the adoption and endorsement of any data strategy. The session concluded with a call to check out further material on the web at global.hitachi-solutions.com.

You might be interested in our upcoming webinar...
AI Readiness Roadmap: Guide to Unlocking Value with a Sound Data Strategy – Hitachi Solutions (hitachi-solutions.com)

global.hitachi-solutions.com

6 Key Considerations for Successful Business Transformation —

 With a Data-driven Upgrade Strategy 

0:0:0.0 --> 0:0:4.590
 Dave Horstein
 Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of exchanges with Hitachi Solutions.

0:0:4.980 --> 0:0:11.370
 Dave Horstein
 I'm Dave Horstein, and of course I can't start episodes like a normal person, so I'm going to start with a little bit of a teaser.

0:0:12.220 --> 0:0:22.170
 Dave Horstein
 I'm going to ask our guests who I haven't even introduced yet, what is a four-letter word that is extremely business friendly, a four letter word that is OK to use in business.

0:0:23.900 --> 0:0:24.230
 Dave Horstein
 Hannah.

0:0:24.240 --> 0:0:25.80
 Dave Horstein
 Greg, any ideas?

0:0:26.530 --> 0:0:26.950
 Hannah Farley
 Umm.

0:0:31.300 --> 0:0:31.560
 Greg Gant
 Data.

0:0:32.380 --> 0:0:34.250
 Dave Horstein
 Did you got it, Greg? Yes.

0:0:36.150 --> 0:0:37.460
 Dave Horstein
 Greg's the winner for today.

0:0:37.670 --> 0:0:43.240
 Dave Horstein
 So today's episode is about data, but before I get into it, I'm going to highlight a couple things are really great.

0:0:43.250 --> 0:0:45.860
 Dave Horstein
 Recent article came out in Harvard Business Review.

0:0:46.30 --> 0:1:0.560
 Dave Horstein
 They're talking about the failures of data strategies and how you get them back on track, and they reference this McKinsey study, which found that up to 30% of employees time is spent on non-value added data work.

0:1:0.730 --> 0:1:14.160
 Dave Horstein
 What they're getting the at there is the amount of of churn that we go through as as knowledge workers in using incorrect data or data that we don't trust in how much time that takes out of our efficiency and productivity for the day.

0:1:15.20 --> 0:1:24.90
 Dave Horstein
 In support of that, a Harvard Business Services Review estimates that only one in six managers actually trust the data they use every day.

0:1:24.460 --> 0:1:28.890
 Dave Horstein
 How can you make effective decisions if you don't trust the data that you have in place?

0:1:29.500 --> 0:1:33.270
 Dave Horstein
 So the question for today is why are so many data initiatives failing?

0:1:33.630 --> 0:1:44.930
 Dave Horstein
 We're going to unravel that as well as the complexities of creating a business led data strategy, one that doesn't just float in the realm of IT departments but is tightly integrated into your business goals and outcomes.

0:1:45.650 --> 0:1:55.20
 Dave Horstein
 We're also going to explore why it's not just about having data, because of course we can continue to collect lots and lots of data, but about making data work towards achieving your business.

0:1:55.30 --> 0:2:4.720
 Dave Horstein
 Most critical objectives first, though, let's introduce our guests for today, Greg Gant, VP of Corporate Development, and Hannah Farley, VP of Advisory Services.

0:2:5.30 --> 0:2:9.640
 Dave Horstein
 Two big players and experts in in this field really great to have you both on.

0:2:11.160 --> 0:2:11.390
 Greg Gant
 Yeah.

0:2:11.200 --> 0:2:12.110
 Hannah Farley
 Yeah, happy to be here.

0:2:11.400 --> 0:2:12.110
 Greg Gant
 Thank you, Dave.

0:2:12.180 --> 0:2:12.870
 Greg Gant
 Happy to be here.

0:2:12.900 --> 0:2:13.710
 Greg Gant
 Ohh Yep.

0:2:13.980 --> 0:2:14.180
 Greg Gant
 Me too.

0:2:14.100 --> 0:2:14.860
 Dave Horstein
 Where I'm hoping to.

0:2:17.260 --> 0:2:17.500
 Greg Gant
 Sorry.

0:2:17.30 --> 0:2:18.540
 Dave Horstein
 We're hoping to start with you both.

0:2:18.710 --> 0:2:29.440
 Dave Horstein
 I'm gonna talk through the six capabilities that we preach in, in data strategies, and then I'm gonna toss it over to you both with some compelling questions.

0:2:29.990 --> 0:2:34.510
 Dave Horstein
 What I want to do though is shape the discussion around how we approach data strategies.

0:2:35.730 --> 0:2:35.970
 Hannah Farley
 Could.

0:2:35.410 --> 0:2:44.360
 Dave Horstein
 We think about these six capabilities and the organization that we should always focus on the 1st and the important thing we're talking about today is a business-led road map.

0:2:44.410 --> 0:2:48.200
 Dave Horstein
 If you're going to build a data strategy, it must be tied to business outcomes.

0:2:48.870 --> 0:2:50.600
 Dave Horstein
 The second is a talent strategy.

0:2:50.850 --> 0:3:3.320
 Dave Horstein
 So your data strategy you're really be thinking about the future state of your organization in the skill sets you're going to need to either upskill reskill or acquire in the market as you're building out your data strategy and realizing the benefits from it.

0:3:3.770 --> 0:3:5.40
 Dave Horstein
 The third is the operating model.

0:3:5.50 --> 0:3:7.770
 Dave Horstein
 How is the organization going to work and share data together?

0:3:8.300 --> 0:3:11.930
 Dave Horstein
 The fourth pillar or capability is the technology solutions themselves.

0:3:11.940 --> 0:3:13.210
 Dave Horstein
 What tech stacks?

0:3:13.380 --> 0:3:18.230
 Dave Horstein
 What solutions are we going to implement as an organization to realize the benefits of all this data?

0:3:18.780 --> 0:3:27.930
 Dave Horstein
 The 5th is data management and governance getting that together so that we have that that confidence in the data that we've we've built across the organization and the 6th.

0:3:27.940 --> 0:3:30.530
 Dave Horstein
 My favorite part is adoption and scaling.

0:3:30.760 --> 0:3:35.810
 Dave Horstein
 How do we enable the people of the organization to take advantage of the data that we have?

0:3:35.860 --> 0:3:38.440
 Dave Horstein
 Makes sense of it and take action on it.

0:3:39.70 --> 0:3:42.690
 Dave Horstein
 OCM going to start with a question for you, Greg and Hannah.

0:3:42.700 --> 0:3:45.770
 Dave Horstein
 I'm hoping you've got some some things to chime in with here as well.

0:3:46.460 --> 0:3:52.130
 Dave Horstein
 Umm for executive leaders, the challenge has always been about making decisions that drive the organization forward.

0:3:52.450 --> 0:3:59.540
 Dave Horstein
 But in landscapes like today, where we're saturated with information, the real challenge is making informed decisions with the right data.

0:3:59.810 --> 0:4:5.990
 Dave Horstein
 So Greg, from your perspective, why should a data strategy focus on business outcomes?

0:4:8.170 --> 0:4:10.560
 Greg Gant
 Yeah, it's it's a great question, Dave.

0:4:10.570 --> 0:4:19.80
 Greg Gant
 And I think it is where organizations today are having some challenges and and a couple things here and maybe a story.

0:4:20.500 --> 0:4:22.190
 Greg Gant
 First off, let's be clear.

0:4:22.200 --> 0:4:28.50
 Greg Gant
 The technology is amazing and we're seeing advancements in the tech and the capabilities.

0:4:28.60 --> 0:4:37.150
 Greg Gant
 And with Gen AI and with AI and with all this stuff, the CIO's toolkit looks differently today than it ever has.

0:4:37.240 --> 0:4:49.660
 Greg Gant
 It's unbelievable and the vendors and the partners and the consulting firms and there's from a tech perspective, there's a million things and typically three are where you need to focus.

0:4:49.670 --> 0:5:4.440
 Greg Gant
 So if you're in the CIO role, if you're in the director of IT role, it's a challenge for you because you can do a lot, then it always comes down to prioritization, resource control and bandwidth and how you prep your people for what's coming.

0:5:5.50 --> 0:5:14.440
 Greg Gant
 So if you're trying to do that from a CIO role, you're most likely going upstream and you're gonna run into challenges.

0:5:14.550 --> 0:5:26.970
 Greg Gant
 So to your point or to your question, the real value comes in driving a road map to get from where you are today, all the way to some.

0:5:26.980 --> 0:5:28.350
 Greg Gant
 We call it a VCP.

0:5:28.360 --> 0:5:35.190
 Greg Gant
 Some level of a value creation point doesn't need to be a extremely long term move, but it needs to.

0:5:35.740 --> 0:5:42.70
 Greg Gant
 Your road map needs to have a series of VCP's that ultimately and eventually take you to that long term.

0:5:42.240 --> 0:6:20.870
 Greg Gant
 Sort of vision that you're trying to get to and there's a reason why that's really critical to drive from the technical angle, but with Alignment at the business leader level and three things that I typically try to recommend our clients on, number one is you need to have long term vision period because there will and we see this with customer after customer after customer, there will be things that try to create speed wobbles or knock you off that that plan period, whether it's people related, whether it's business process or in the in the CIO role prep.

0:6:20.890 --> 0:6:29.600
 Greg Gant
 For keep the lights on work right, there's going to be things that pop up with your SAP implementation that all of a sudden we said, hey, we have to prioritize resources over there.

0:6:30.880 --> 0:6:33.530
 Greg Gant
 We're now in a different trajectory and that happens.

0:6:33.540 --> 0:6:50.110
 Greg Gant
 So you you need to have long term vision that is aligned with business leaders and not just aligned, but ideally driven by the value that the business leaders need to create period that helps you just have Alignment helps everybody be working from the same page.

0:6:50.260 --> 0:6:54.630
 Greg Gant
 Ultimately, it's gonna help prioritize and do investment planning.

0:6:54.640 --> 0:7:19.950
 Greg Gant
 And I mean your talent, your resources, your tools, your process, everything that needs to be morphed and evolved from a sound data strategy is going to need to tie back to prioritization, because we all know you can't do, you know we, we guide that you can't do more than three things at once with all the crazy new ways of working and everything that's changing so quickly, you almost say you can't do more than one thing at a time.

0:7:20.40 --> 0:7:32.140
 Greg Gant
 And so you got to have a way to prioritize your investments and then probably the most important side and where we see in Hannah, I'd love your two cents here where we see our customers often.

0:7:32.590 --> 0:7:58.630
 Greg Gant
 I hate to say be a little short sighted, but maybe under invest in the people side of this road map right where the only way a data led transformation works, as if your people, your talent, your teams, your business units are bought in to where you're going and that ultimately ties back to a road map with a vision and strategic alignment for your business leadership.

0:7:58.640 --> 0:7:59.830
 Greg Gant
 So that's my two.

0:7:59.840 --> 0:8:0.440
 Greg Gant
 Santana. What?

0:8:0.460 --> 0:8:1.160
 Greg Gant
 And what do you think?

0:8:2.250 --> 0:8:9.820
 Hannah Farley
 Ohh yeah, I wish I could just say Ditto to everything Greg just said, but I totally agree.

0:8:9.830 --> 0:8:19.830
 Hannah Farley
 I'll say to like just to kind of break this down to bare bones, if we have any listeners who don't really know what a data strategy is, right, like what what exactly is that?

0:8:19.840 --> 0:8:21.640
 Hannah Farley
 What does that mean and why is it important?

0:8:21.870 --> 0:8:26.980
 Hannah Farley
 I think we all know that data is really an organization's information asset, right?

0:8:26.990 --> 0:8:33.50
 Hannah Farley
 So it's an data is an asset and it is the most important thing for organizations to make decisions on.

0:8:33.340 --> 0:8:43.610
 Hannah Farley
 And as we continue to move into the future, you know, with digital transformation AI, all the things that we're seeing, it's becoming increasingly important for them to have a good handle on it, right.

0:8:43.750 --> 0:8:47.270
 Hannah Farley
 And so I think it's essential when you think about data strategy.

0:8:47.280 --> 0:9:1.550
 Hannah Farley
 I really second what Greg said in terms of making sure that long term plan incorporates technology, processes, people and then the rules required to manage right and organizations data which is data governance, right.

0:9:1.560 --> 0:9:2.570
 Hannah Farley
 We call that data governance.

0:9:3.300 --> 0:9:10.580
 Hannah Farley
 Those are super important for an organization to stay relevant, competitive and innovative, you know, emits change.

0:9:10.590 --> 0:9:12.760
 Hannah Farley
 It's it is the basis for decision making.

0:9:12.770 --> 0:9:31.980
 Hannah Farley
 Data is across all organizations and so I would say I definitely agree with Greg that the people part is sometimes maybe the last focus on that, but it should be the most important focus because we've all heard that old saying garbage in, garbage out from a data perspective.

0:9:32.110 --> 0:9:33.100
 Hannah Farley
 And so when?

0:9:33.980 --> 0:9:42.310
 Hannah Farley
 When anyone's developing a data strategy and thinking about the governance perspective, you know you can set up systems that are amazing and really relevant.

0:9:42.360 --> 0:10:2.850
 Hannah Farley
 But if you don't have the processes and the governance, those rules that we just talked about and you don't have the people on board who have understand the expectations around how they're supposed to work and input data in a certain way and pull that data to analyze and you know make business decisions on, then it then your strategies are not really gonna work right.

0:10:2.910 --> 0:10:5.730
 Hannah Farley
 So it's a lot of that alignment that Greg spoke with spoke to earlier.

0:10:7.860 --> 0:10:9.210
 Hannah Farley
 So yeah, second everything he says.

0:10:7.960 --> 0:10:18.460
 Dave Horstein
 I love those insights and yeah, it's the all of that is so important and I think it's easy to overlook a lot of the discussions I get pulled into around data strategy.

0:10:18.510 --> 0:10:30.770
 Dave Horstein
 They're starting with the technology and it it really is through a series of discussions where we unravel the true business drivers that organizations are trying to get at with their data strategies.

0:10:31.570 --> 0:10:41.420
 Dave Horstein
 With that said, how do we actually lead organizations or the OR leaders within organizations down that path of building a business-led road map?

0:10:41.430 --> 0:10:42.160
 Dave Horstein
 What does that look like?

0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:45.610
 Greg Gant
 Yeah, maybe, Hannah, I'll.

0:10:45.660 --> 0:10:52.330
 Greg Gant
 I'll take a stab and then I'd love your additions here because you you see it with customers as well.

0:10:52.380 --> 0:10:56.910
 Greg Gant
 I think, Dave, it's really simple, but it's just like a great golf swing.

0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:3.950
 Greg Gant
 It's about 94 steps and all of them change it every different step, so it's it is a little tricky.

0:11:3.960 --> 0:11:12.620
 Greg Gant
 A layout I try to guide customers with a simple five step hey start here, then here, then here, then here.

0:11:12.630 --> 0:11:18.980
 Greg Gant
 I'll kind of walk through that very high level and let me know, you know, if any other questions bubble up #1.

0:11:19.50 --> 0:11:20.700
 Greg Gant
 And I think Hannah would agree with this.

0:11:21.230 --> 0:11:26.680
 Greg Gant
 It starts with defining clear business outcomes, and there's a lot of ways to do that.

0:11:26.690 --> 0:11:35.30
 Greg Gant
 We at Atachi, we leverage a workshop method that we call OGSM objectives, goals, strategies, measures.

0:11:35.40 --> 0:11:38.810
 Greg Gant
 It's a very quick way to gather Alignment on where you want to go.

0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:44.420
 Greg Gant
 You have to have very, very clear vision on where you want to go.

0:11:44.430 --> 0:11:45.680
 Greg Gant
 So we start with business outcomes.

0:11:46.940 --> 0:11:50.40
 Greg Gant
 I think the the key there is it has to be aligned, right?

0:11:50.50 --> 0:12:6.490
 Greg Gant
 That's something that we see missing when we do dive in with customers from time to time is you may have some business outcomes identified and you may have those up on a whiteboard somewhere and even in a room with some of your peers, you may find that everybody says, yeah, those look great.

0:12:6.880 --> 0:12:10.240
 Greg Gant
 And if you go connect one on one with individuals afterwards, they go.

0:12:10.250 --> 0:12:10.550
 Greg Gant
 Yeah.

0:12:10.560 --> 0:12:13.870
 Greg Gant
 Well, Greg, Outcomes are his things and I'm not sure about that.

0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.470
 Greg Gant
 And I don't really understand kind of where he's trying to go.

0:12:16.890 --> 0:12:19.260
 Greg Gant
 You gotta you gotta wipe all that out.

0:12:19.310 --> 0:12:24.110
 Greg Gant
 And you do that by some of Alignment style workshops like an OGSM.

0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.780
 Greg Gant
 There's about 20 different ways you can do that, but you need alignment.

0:12:26.790 --> 0:12:33.420
 Greg Gant
 That's key, right when you have Alignment, when you have business outcomes, you can move into Step 3, which is current state assessment, right?

0:12:33.430 --> 0:12:34.460
 Greg Gant
 Where are we today?

0:12:34.510 --> 0:12:36.60
 Greg Gant
 And a realistic view.

0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:40.560
 Hannah Farley
 Umm.

0:12:36.70 --> 0:12:45.310
 Greg Gant
 It's very easy to bring egos into this and I sort of chuckle a little bit because we see it with customers often where they say no, here's our current state.

0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:48.810
 Greg Gant
 We're actually in a pretty good spot and say, well, OK, good, good, good.

0:12:48.890 --> 0:13:3.310
 Greg Gant
 Let's let's take a neutral look at that and identify where the opportunities are so that I mentioned the word opportunity because when I see that with customers, I like to angle it a little bit different and say, hey, let's not look at this as a self assessment.

0:13:3.480 --> 0:13:5.790
 Greg Gant
 Let's look at this as an opportunity vision board.

0:13:5.800 --> 0:13:7.550
 Greg Gant
 How do we go in and start saying?

0:13:7.680 --> 0:13:15.120
 Greg Gant
 Here's where we have opportunity to create and realized value within our organization through a data strategy.

0:13:15.590 --> 0:13:27.220
 Greg Gant
 Lastly, you know kind of moving into step four and five, it's all about the strategic vision with the roadmap framework and for us we you know a lot of customers, a lot of organizations call that a strategy map.

0:13:27.310 --> 0:13:33.200
 Greg Gant
 How do you go from where you are today with that opportunity and current state assessment based on your outcomes.

0:13:33.470 --> 0:13:37.890
 Greg Gant
 Dot dot, dot and start drawing the map to say OK, here's our initiatives that start to align.

0:13:37.900 --> 0:13:39.180
 Greg Gant
 Maybe we need new initiatives.

0:13:39.190 --> 0:13:41.650
 Greg Gant
 Maybe we need to reprioritize INITIATIVES.

0:13:41.660 --> 0:13:42.710
 Greg Gant
 Here's our timeline.

0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:44.70
 Greg Gant
 Here's who owns those things.

0:13:44.80 --> 0:13:48.270
 Greg Gant
 Here's our resource plan and you start to treat that like an internal portfolio.

0:13:48.470 --> 0:13:49.950
 Greg Gant
 This is where a lot and it's OK.

0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:51.610
 Greg Gant
 This is where a lot of customers need help.

0:13:51.620 --> 0:13:57.710
 Greg Gant
 They need help operationalizing a vision and current state and how to do everything in between.

0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:1.770
 Greg Gant
 And then step five I think is all about that people plan, right?

0:14:1.780 --> 0:14:6.890
 Greg Gant
 So if we're going to have a project and portfolio initiative, don't leave your people out of it.

0:14:6.900 --> 0:14:16.840
 Greg Gant
 How do we make sure that we're creating the awareness, the desire, the knowledge, the ability and all the reinforcement plays that are needed to make that thing come to life?

0:14:16.850 --> 0:14:20.210
 Greg Gant
 Because without it it's just good slideware.

0:14:20.270 --> 0:14:22.880
 Greg Gant
 So we try to go through that religious really quickly.

0:14:22.890 --> 0:14:26.840
 Greg Gant
 Again, business outcomes down into your kind of Alignment.

0:14:27.50 --> 0:14:29.620
 Greg Gant
 Current state assessment drive that vision.

0:14:29.790 --> 0:14:34.840
 Greg Gant
 Build your road map and framework and then make sure your people plan is there to support every phase of the way.

0:14:34.850 --> 0:14:35.700
 Greg Gant
 That's my.

0:14:35.740 --> 0:14:36.920
 Greg Gant
 That's my CHEAT SHEET, Hannah.

0:14:36.930 --> 0:14:37.450
 Greg Gant
 What do you think?

0:14:38.930 --> 0:14:41.790
 Hannah Farley
 If I could have five, you virtually right now, Greg.

0:14:43.370 --> 0:14:45.200
 Dave Horstein
 And is all about the high fives lately.

0:14:45.250 --> 0:14:45.650
 Dave Horstein
 I love it.

0:14:45.230 --> 0:14:45.810
 Greg Gant
 Umm.

0:14:45.430 --> 0:14:46.510
 Hannah Farley
 I am I am.

0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:49.420
 Hannah Farley
 This is my favorite, so yeah, absolutely.

0:14:49.430 --> 0:15:5.690
 Hannah Farley
 What Greg said, a couple things like I'll, I think I'll tack on to that and Dave, you hear me say this, Greg, you probably heard me say this a million times when we seek customers start with the the technology right and and not just technology from a data perspective, but we see this all the time.

0:15:5.700 --> 0:15:14.170
 Hannah Farley
 I've seen this for 20 some years, right when we see them focus on that and thinking the technology is going to solve all of their problems.

0:15:15.380 --> 0:15:16.300
 Hannah Farley
 You know something?

0:15:16.310 --> 0:15:20.890
 Hannah Farley
 I just wanna quote that I love is you can have a technical success in a business failure.

0:15:20.980 --> 0:15:28.830
 Hannah Farley
 It doesn't matter how good the technology is if you haven't done all the things that Greg just says, right, so then you're investing in some technology.

0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:38.150
 Hannah Farley
 But if you haven't done the legwork to go and make it successful, create the reinforcements and the accountability on the behaviors that you need to see to make this successful.

0:15:38.380 --> 0:15:43.150
 Hannah Farley
 It isn't gonna work, and I think a big foundational part of that, too is that Alignment.

0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:57.240
 Hannah Farley
 And so when we go into a customer for any type of work, umm, one of the first things we do is is start to understand the Alignment and maybe asking leaders separately because you get leaders in a room and you say hey, are you guys all aligned?

0:15:57.250 --> 0:16:2.870
 Hannah Farley
 And I would say 90% of the time, they all raise their hands and they're like, yes, we're totally aligned.

0:16:3.430 --> 0:16:6.970
 Hannah Farley
 But then when you go and have a conversation and dig deeper, tell me your thoughts on this.

0:16:6.980 --> 0:16:7.890
 Hannah Farley
 Like what?

0:16:8.110 --> 0:16:12.860
 Hannah Farley
 Give me your interpretation of these business outcomes that we're hoping to achieve right.

0:16:13.10 --> 0:16:20.690
 Hannah Farley
 And then when I start piecing those things together, I recognize there's actually misalignment there and we need to get back in the room to make sure that we're doing it.

0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:22.630
 Hannah Farley
 So I think, Greg, exactly right.

0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:31.790
 Hannah Farley
 I would, I would say I would caution people to to not take vocalized Alignment at face value, right.

0:16:31.800 --> 0:16:38.10
 Hannah Farley
 And dig in to make sure there is true Alignment, because sometimes people think they are aligned and may not recognize that they're not right.

0:16:38.110 --> 0:16:38.340
 Dave Horstein
 Yeah.

0:16:48.500 --> 0:16:48.630
 Dave Horstein
 Yeah.

0:16:38.60 --> 0:16:55.280
 Hannah Farley
 And that's one of those things that you can get pretty far into a project and the project will be rail if then when you go back and recognize that leaders weren't totally aligned for those things because that Alignment, like Greg said, helps you define the business outcomes, it helps define everything else that he's talking through, right?

0:16:55.290 --> 0:17:2.670
 Hannah Farley
 The road mapping, making sure that you've enabled your people to adopt and all of those things to ensure success of your data strategy.

0:17:4.60 --> 0:17:20.790
 Dave Horstein
 Of the Hannah I on the verbal Alignment, I was probably about 334 months ago now in the room with C-Suite and VP's and my my job for the day essentially was to make sure that they Alignment done some important decisions moving forward.

0:17:21.80 --> 0:17:31.360
 Dave Horstein
 And The funny thing would be, I would hear all these conflicting statements about priorities and then would the executives would say, OK, sounds like we're in agreement here and move on.

0:17:31.370 --> 0:17:33.550
 Dave Horstein
 And I had have to say, hold on pause.

0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:37.110
 Dave Horstein
 I'm not picking up on this Alignment.

0:17:39.310 --> 0:17:39.700
 Greg Gant
 Umm.

0:17:37.120 --> 0:17:46.560
 Dave Horstein
 Let's hash through it again, and so sometimes that that verbal alignment is just conflict avoidance, which could lead to very poor business outcomes.

0:17:48.220 --> 0:17:48.370
 Greg Gant
 Yeah.

0:17:48.230 --> 0:17:58.980
 Dave Horstein
 But on that note, Hannah, what what happens when we don't have Alignment at the executive level and we build something like a business-led road map for a data strategy that's supposed to shape the organization?

0:17:59.540 --> 0:18:0.640
 Dave Horstein
 What sort of impact does that have?

0:18:2.230 --> 0:18:2.880
 Hannah Farley
 Well, I can.

0:18:2.930 --> 0:18:14.440
 Hannah Farley
 I can tell you a few stories here, but you know, for this one, if you don't have the alignment and you get down the road and you and you start the implementation, I will say that I people.

0:18:17.140 --> 0:18:19.850
 Hannah Farley
 People respond to the people that they report to, right.

0:18:19.860 --> 0:18:34.120
 Hannah Farley
 And so if you've got someone who a leader who may not be aligned at the other leaders, but they are prioritizing the work of their people, that's not going to align to the overall project and the business outcomes and the goals essentially, right.

0:18:34.230 --> 0:18:40.180
 Hannah Farley
 I would say at times that can accidentally happened, but I've been on multiple projects where bets become an issue, right?

0:18:40.190 --> 0:18:42.600
 Hannah Farley
 We thought we had Alignment, we really didn't.

0:18:42.650 --> 0:18:48.980
 Hannah Farley
 And you see it when you start to execute when you're kind of too far down the road to backtrack on it.

0:18:49.30 --> 0:19:2.530
 Hannah Farley
 And then when you recognize that the people who are actually marching and executing and carrying out these things, the people who need to go and adopt these changes that you're implementing that are so lucrative and important for the organization is to stay competitive.

0:19:3.0 --> 0:19:6.190
 Hannah Farley
 They're not executing the right things, and they're not executing well.

0:19:13.390 --> 0:19:13.600
 Dave Horstein
 Yep.

0:19:6.660 --> 0:19:13.930
 Hannah Farley
 That's been Alignment comes into play, and when companies start to really lose their return on investment that they were hoping to get right.

0:19:24.120 --> 0:19:24.460
 Dave Horstein
 That's right.

0:19:13.940 --> 0:19:27.680
 Hannah Farley
 And so that's why Alignment super important to have you know very early and make sure it's thorough Alignment because people listen to their bosses who prioritize their work, right, more so than somebody that they may have a dotted loan to or not connect to.

0:19:27.830 --> 0:19:39.60
 Hannah Farley
 So if if Greg's got a team of folks and Greg and are are peers and we're, you know, working on a project, but we're not totally aligned and Greg's trying to go implement this strategy.

0:19:39.210 --> 0:19:41.280
 Hannah Farley
 But I'm telling my people something different.

0:19:41.290 --> 0:19:42.40
 Hannah Farley
 Like you know what?

0:19:42.110 --> 0:19:42.480
 Hannah Farley
 Yeah.

0:19:42.490 --> 0:19:45.700
 Hannah Farley
 What Greg says is great and all, but we're gonna go prioritize these things.

0:19:45.850 --> 0:19:49.470
 Hannah Farley
 They're gonna do what I'm saying to prioritize, and they're not gonna go execute work.

0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.0
 Hannah Farley
 Correct needs them to execute right?

0:19:51.590 --> 0:19:52.170
 Dave Horstein
 Absolutely.

0:19:51.10 --> 0:19:54.140
 Hannah Farley
 And so how successful do we think Greg's project would be at that point?

0:19:55.330 --> 0:19:56.110
 Dave Horstein
 Not at all.

0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:58.440
 Dave Horstein
 You just reminded me, Hannah.

0:19:58.450 --> 0:20:1.810
 Dave Horstein
 I I did dig while you were talking about this stat.

0:20:1.820 --> 0:20:2.700
 Dave Horstein
 I like to throw out there.

0:20:2.710 --> 0:20:3.750
 Dave Horstein
 It's from Forrester.

0:20:4.350 --> 0:20:13.140
 Dave Horstein
 80% of data strategy implementations and counter cultural people process or organizational resistance as the principal challenge.

0:20:13.750 --> 0:20:16.180
 Dave Horstein
 80% of data strategy implementations.

0:20:16.270 --> 0:20:16.990
 Dave Horstein
 It's about the people.

0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:19.390
 Hannah Farley
 Absolutely.

0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:31.210
 Hannah Farley
 Again, because the technology can be great, but it's it's kind of like when you're implementing a CRM system, but you know, people don't necessarily have to use it and they can default to their old ways.

0:20:31.220 --> 0:20:34.750
 Hannah Farley
 And so those rules and the governance around it are extremely important.

0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:40.150
 Hannah Farley
 But if you think about governance, it's not like working a system where there is one specific way to do something.

0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:44.180
 Hannah Farley
 If people don't adhere to the rules and the regulations from.

0:20:46.190 --> 0:20:52.420
 Hannah Farley
 A data perspective and in terms of like what they enter and how they and pull the data in, how all of that is analyzed.

0:20:52.510 --> 0:20:56.700
 Hannah Farley
 Then again, it's kind of the garbage in garbage out thing, right?

0:21:9.400 --> 0:21:9.900
 Dave Horstein
 That's right.

0:20:56.710 --> 0:21:17.690
 Hannah Farley
 And then every effort they've taken to get there is null and void, and sometimes it will have people come to us and say we need this new technology because our old efforts didn't work and it wasn't because the technology was bad, it was because they didn't enable their people and developed the behavioral reinforcements to create accountability around making sure that governance model worked.

0:21:18.450 --> 0:21:19.250
 Dave Horstein
 It's so important.

0:21:20.420 --> 0:21:22.230
 Dave Horstein
 Well, I'll tell you what, Greg.

0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:29.490
 Dave Horstein
 Hannah, I think this was a really great overview of the importance of having a business-led road map for your data strategy.

0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:37.590
 Dave Horstein
 I, as always, I have three things that I wrote down, great insights that I extracted from you both that I want to make sure our listeners take away.

0:21:47.80 --> 0:21:47.240
 Hannah Farley
 Yes.

0:21:49.210 --> 0:21:49.370
 Hannah Farley
 Yes.

0:21:38.20 --> 0:21:51.50
 Dave Horstein
 The first thing Hannah, you were alluding to the fact that data is the most valuable asset in organization has and I know you mean outside of its people, but for the sake of this conversation, it is the most valuable asset and it really is.

0:21:51.60 --> 0:22:0.540
 Dave Horstein
 I think uh, you know, ten, 1520 years ago, data was emerging as as an asset as something that organizations were starting to take more seriously.

0:22:0.710 --> 0:22:11.780
 Dave Horstein
 And what we're finding now is it's not enough to leverage data appropriately just to survive or sorry, just to thrive, but to survive, to remain competitive in the market, you have to be able to have actionable insights from the data that you have.

0:22:13.110 --> 0:22:27.120
 Dave Horstein
 This second thing that I wrote down, Umm Greg mentioned that the real value comes from a business-led road map that shares not just long term vision, but a grounding in tangible value creation points.

0:22:27.420 --> 0:22:34.970
 Dave Horstein
 So he's talking about how we've got to be able to make sure we have that Alignment, that vision of where the organization's going as it becomes more data driven or data enabled.

0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:37.140
 Dave Horstein
 But we have to have tangible value creation points.

0:22:37.150 --> 0:22:44.470
 Dave Horstein
 We have to know what sort of ROI is we're measuring, whether they are actual dollars or or experience optimizations.

0:22:44.690 --> 0:22:48.210
 Dave Horstein
 So we can measure the progress along the way and make sure that we don't have to pivot.

0:22:48.860 --> 0:22:52.490
 Dave Horstein
 The third thing, Hannah, I loved this statement.

0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.510
 Dave Horstein
 If you don't have Alignment, you won't get the ROI.

0:22:56.60 --> 0:23:6.190
 Dave Horstein
 So, as Greg and Hannah, both of you alluded to, this the return on investment for any of these data initiatives is depending on people adopting them and being able to make actionable decisions on them.

0:23:6.420 --> 0:23:9.590
 Dave Horstein
 If you don't have that Alignment, people are going to go back into their silos.

0:23:9.690 --> 0:23:25.70
 Dave Horstein
 They're going to listen to the people that they report to, the leaders they report to, and you're going to have miss mismatched adoption and leveraging of the data that you have, Greg, Vice, President of Corporate Development, Hannah Farley, Vice President Advisory Services.

0:23:25.80 --> 0:23:28.150
 Dave Horstein
 Thank you both for joining me and and taking me through this discussion.

0:23:28.160 --> 0:23:29.390
 Dave Horstein
 It was incredibly insightful.

0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:33.210
 Dave Horstein
 Thank you to our listeners for hanging with us and and learning as we go.

0:23:33.420 --> 0:23:40.830
 Dave Horstein
 If you liked what you heard, be sure to check us out on the web at global.hitachi-solutions.com and we will talk to you next time.

0:23:42.620 --> 0:23:43.250
 Greg Gant
 Thank you, Dave.

0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:44.330
 Greg Gant
 See you, Hannah.

0:23:44.50 --> 0:23:44.560
 Hannah Farley
 Thanks Dave.
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