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The Data Analytics Revolution is here. It is transforming how companies organize, operate, manage talent, and create value. In fact, advanced 
data analytics is now a quintessential business matter. It is important for CEOs and top executives to be able to clearly articulate its purpose and translate it into action. Yet, this is not so.
CEOs and top executives are finding it difficult to articulate the clarity of purpose and act on it. It must not just stay in an Analytics department but must be embedded throughout the organization where the insights will be used. Leaders with strong intuition do not just become better equipped to kick the tires on their analytics efforts. Leadership Development now calls for leaders to be capable of addressing many critical top management challenges. It now requires employing a range of tools, employing the right personnel, applying hard metrics, and asking hard questions.
Data Analytics is a means to an end. It is a discriminating tool for identifying and implementing a value-driving answer. It can unleash insights that could be the very core of your organization’s approach to improving performance. This, however, cannot be achieved if there is no clarity in the purpose of your data.
Data Analytics Revolution: Are We Ready?
The Data Analytics Revolution is transforming how companies organize, operate, manage talents, and create value. But are we ready for this? A number of companies are reaping major rewards from Data Analytics. But this is far from the norm. More CEOs and top executives are avoiding getting dragged into the esoteric weeds.
Data Analytics have complex methodologies and there is a sheer scale of data sets. Machine Learning is becoming increasingly more important. For us to be ready in the onset of Data Analytics Revolutions, we need to be capable of addressing many critical and complimentary top management challenges. We need to be able to ground even the highest analytical aspirations in traditional business principles and deploy a range of tools and people.
To be properly equipped on the proper use of Data Analytics, we just need to develop a mindset for Purpose-driven Analytics anchored on 4 guiding principles.
The 4 Guiding Principles of Purpose-driven Analytics
- Ask Clear and Correct Questions. The first principle focuses on generating impact the soonest. Hence, precise questions are asked based on the company’s best-informed priorities. Here, clarity is essential.
- Identify Small Changes for Big Impact. The second principle focuses on generating gains even on small improvements. There is a need to identify small points of difference to amplify and exploit because the smallest edge can make the biggest difference.
- Leverage Soft Data. The third principle focuses on getting quality insights and generating sharper conclusions. It is at this point wherein the use of softer inputs such as industry forecasts, predictions from product experts, and social media commentary are given more emphasis. Soft data is essential when trying to connect the dots between more exact inputs.
- Connect Separate Data Sets. The fourth principle focuses on capturing the untapped value. This principle emphasizes the need to combine sources of information to make sharper insights. When different data sets are examined, the greater is the probability that problems can easily be fixed.
From Learning to Doing: Connecting the Dots
It is not enough that organizations learn about Purpose-driven Analytics. One also needs to be able to put these into effective use. Companies undergoing Digital Transformation must take a multi-faceted approach to analyze data to minimize overwhelming complexity. There are 4 guiding principles for Purpose-driven Analytics implementation. Using these principles will facilitate the effective use of analytics and transform outputs into action.
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In the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, we are approaching the age of automation. Together with this is the impending penetration of 
digital technology into the labor force which can threaten to destabilize crucial aspects of how employees work by. This can undermine the stability companies depend on to be agile.
With the coming transformation, executives can resolidify their companies by developing a robust Digital Transformation Strategy. There is just a need for executives to adjust their leadership behavior, embrace digital workforce platforms, and deepen their engagement with digitally enabled workers.
Facing the Current Digital Landscape
Workforce Digitization and the powerful economics of automation require a sweeping rethinking of organization structures, influence, and control. According to a recent study made by McKinsey Global Institute, most industries have yet to fully digitize their workforce as these are lagging behind the leading digitized sectors. Digital Transformation is just not happening in most industries. Organizations have to realize that in Workforce Digitization, automation can devastate established assumptions on stability.
The hallmark of an agile age is the ability to be stable and dynamic. The McKinsey research further showed that the workers’ roles and the processes that support them are the bedrock aspects of stability. These are the first and fourth most important factors that differentiate agile companies from the rest.
However, with the onset of automation, the workforce is destabilized. Jobs are disaggregated into component tasks and companies are forced to reassemble remaining tasks into something that makes a new kind of sense. On the other hand, job destabilization can have a dual-faceted impact. Organizations can either become more agile, healthy, and high performing or it can collapse into internal dysfunction.
The direction organizations will go will depend on how it can utilize Digital Workforce Platforms.
The Workforce Platform: Leading Organizations to Stability
Proper use of Workforce Platforms can help leaders restabilize the workforce and reconceive organizational structures to achieve stability. It has 4 core benefits of achieving stability.
- Collaboration. Workforce Platforms can be effective staffing coordinators with a multiplex of roles. It can maximize the visibility and mobility of the best people within the organization.
- Retention. It can bring science to talent management through the scientific process of retention. Workforce Platforms can help employees grow and develop as their career progresses.
- Succession Planning. Workforce Platforms are effective in increasing employees’ engagement in their work through Succession Planning. Through Success Planning, organizations are ensured that strategic capabilities, institutional knowledge, and leadership skills are retained within the organization.
- Decision Making. A vital core benefit, it can create conditions where employees feel valued by their organization and are happy in their environment. This is crucial as it can create conditions where employees feel energized and empowered.
Workforce Platforms are effective in leading organizations towards achieving agility. It moves companies to go beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to human resource and talent management.
Maximizing the Benefits of Workforce Platforms.
Benefits gained from Workforce Platforms can further be maximized. This can be achieved when there are appropriate support processes in place. There should be dynamic scheduling and appropriate leadership decisions. Our leaders are our organization’s architect. Being able to make the right leadership decisions can lead organizations to successfully maneuver their transformation in this age of automation. At this stage, Leadership Development plays a vital role.
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Management processes–everything from how a company manages risk to how it gets supplies 
for factories to how it manages and develops people–are some of the primary ways that global companies impose order and consistency on a diverse set of global operations. Companies believe that processes can help share knowledge across divisions and regions to achieve operational excellence. Likewise, seamless delivery and service processes can be central to meeting customer expectations.
In a world where the pace of competition is increasing faster than ever, best-in-class processes can create competitive advantages when it comes to innovation and risk management. However, researches have shown that companies are particularly poor at managing processes. Often there are just too many processes. Worst, executives often do not know where to begin; a Leadership Development dilemma.
Global Process Optimization is the strategic approach to building a real Competitive Advantage. However, it can be a challenge and there are pitfalls that organizations must face.
The Pitfalls of Organizations
Global organizations are particularly poor at managing processes. Processes are considered one of the 3 weakest aspects of organizations and strengthening them is crucial.
Based on a McKinsey survey of executives, executives do not know what their processes are. Inasmuch as there are just too many processes, these processes do not reflect new customer needs. In fact, there exists a resistance to change that can be damaging to an organization.
Organizations have to understand that processes can go wrong on a global scale and it can bring in a lot of challenges to an organization.
The 3 Core Challenges to Global Organizations
Organizations are faced with 3 core challenges when dealing with processes and transforming them to a global scale.
- A Plethora of Processes. When there are a plethora of processes, there are just too many processes and too little value. This happens when executives are unable to differentiate between processes that are essential to creating global value and those that are inessential but offer benefits if these are consistent. Executives also fail to differentiate between processes that are crucial to customers or those that create value and those that do not. A plethora of processes is also created when the operation is in various locations or as a result of M&A activity.
- Overstandardization. How do you know that overstandardization exists? It is when processes are so rigid that they are slow to respond to new growth. As a result, there is a dramatic decrease in local responsiveness. This core challenge often arises because there is just too much concern about maximizing control and reducing risk.
- Resistance to Change. This is the third core challenge faced when change is introduced and there is resistance. Resistance to change often occurs when there is difficulty in changing customer-facing processes until the organization is faced with customer backlash. Executives often fail to understand customers’ preference for standard global service. The thinking is often directed towards country-specific variations which are not often what customers like.
Overcoming the 3 core challenges can be done. Organizations just need to take on a 3-phase approach that will ensure that all global processes are enabling performance. These are Prioritize, Optimize, and Implement. A 3-phase approach is an effective tool towards approaching Global Process Optimization in a strategic manner where value is maximized at minimal cost and complexity.
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Technology, Internet, growth, and globalization have metamorphosed the way we work, play, and live. They have even changed the fundamental laws of economics. We are living in an economy that is quite different from the old manufacturing-based economy of the 1980s. Fewer people are now employed in the manufacturing sector, who are anxious about the prospects of being replaced by machines soon.
The “New Economy” is a term economists started using in the 1990s to describe new, high-tech, high-growth industries that have been the driving force of economic growth since that period. The new economy is also heralded as the Digital Economy, the Knowledge Economy, the Data Economy, or the eCommerce Economy. Top technology enterprises—including Google, Facebook and Apple—have outpaced traditional firms around the globe by taking advantage of the new economy.
Leadership Development in this age of Digital Economy is a key challenge for most organizations. More and more organizations, today, are revisiting what they are about and the meaning of leadership for them. It’s not about one person or even those residing at the top anymore.
MIT Sloan Management Review conducted a study of 4,000 executives from 120 geographies around the world to understand what defines a great leader in this changing world. The study revealed striking results with most executives believed that their leaders lacked the mindset needed to produce the strategic changes essential for leading in the Digital Economy. Enterprise-level transformation is what majority of leaders feared to embark on.
Mindsets are established set of attitudes held by someone that shape how a person interprets and responds to experiences. A mindset arises out of a person’s view of the world or philosophy of life. To know about the Digital Economy leadership mindsets (i.e. leadership mindsets critical to survive in this new economy), the MIT Sloan Management Review’s global study identifies 4 critical mindsets—based on in-depth interviews from executives worldwide and detailed analysis of data:
- The Producer
- The Investor
- The Connector
- The Explorer
Let’s define these first 2 leadership mindsets.
The Producer
Leaders with a producer mindset evaluate each of their customer touch points painstakingly. These leaders exhibit a passion for producing customer value. Producers concentrate on analytics, digital know-how, implementation, results, and customer satisfaction. They focus on analytics to fast-track creativity. The resulting innovation helps them tackle shifting customer preferences and enhance customer experiences. The Producers strive to create all the customer journeys enjoyable.
The Investor
The leaders with an investor mindset make people appreciate the higher purpose they serve by their work. They constantly struggle to instill motivation and teamwork among their teams in order to achieve their overall organizational goals. The leaders with an investor mindset are concerned about the communities that surround them. They look after the well-being and constant advancement of their employees, and devote their efforts to improve value for their customers.
Fostering these types of mindsets is critical to building the right Organizational Culture for an organization to be successful in the Digital Economy.
Interested in learning more about the leadership mindsets required to win in the new economy? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Leadership Mindsets Critical to Succeed in the Digital Economy here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
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