The current economic environment threatens the success — and perhaps even the survival — of many small and midsize companies, because larger organizations are increasingly able to provide personalized experiences to their customers, in literally any way their customers choose. Most leaders of these smaller companies have already made significant digital investments to support their businesses operationally. But even as teams continue to work hard to harness all the data being generated by these technologies, it still takes longer than it should to get answers to basic KPI questions that are critical to running the business. What digital strategies are most small and midsize businesses missing? The answer is two-fold: understanding that you need specialized business analytics expertise on your leadership team and that you need to change how your organization makes decisions.
Digital transformation is a hot topic, but most leaders don’t understand the full scope of what it means. At a recent class in Drexel University’s Executive MBA program, one of Microsoft’s highly respected technology executives and global C-Suite advisors, April Walker, presented this definition: “Digital transformation is not just ‘doing digital.’ Digital transformation is a deliberate, strategic repositioning of one’s business in today’s digital economy.” She went on to share that businesses of all sizes can no longer get away with using digital tools to simply enhance and support traditional methods of doing business.
The current economic environment threatens the success — and perhaps even the survival — of many small and midsize companies, because larger organizations are increasingly able to provide personalized experiences to their customers, in literally any way their customers choose.
Most leaders of these smaller companies have already made significant digital investments to support their businesses operationally. They may have implemented technologies across a broad spectrum of business functions, like HR, governance and cybersecurity, customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and finance and risk, but stopped short of investing in AI or predictive analytics. But even as teams continue to work hard to harness all the data being generated by these technologies, it still takes longer than it should to get answers to basic KPI questions that are critical to running the business, such as those around customer churn, retention and satisfaction rates, employee satisfaction and turnover, average deal size, or billings by key products and services. Even more frustrating is that, when the reports are finally delivered, they lack insights into why the changes are occurring.
Assuming you have the above in place, what digital strategies are most small and midsize businesses missing? The answer is two-fold: understanding that you need specialized business analytics expertise on your leadership team and that you need to change how your organization makes decisions.
An April 2020 Oxford Economics study uncovered a sense of unpreparedness among 2,000 small and midsize businesses surveyed across 19 countries. Approximately half of participants reported that the pandemic brought a series of operational disruptions and market volatility that has challenged their ability to serve customers reliably, engage employees authentically, and build trust with their partners. Although that may not be entirely surprising, more revealing was how they viewed their access to data-driven insights to support their goals and digital transformation efforts. Fewer than 40% said they have all the data needed to support analytics-based decision making. Gaps in data collection and analysis hinder small and midsize businesses’ ability to offer customers personalized connections.
