Describing data consumption to anyone
Visualizing data consumption as a bustling marketplace can help illuminate an organization’s diverse needs. Let’s explore how various business roles interact with data, like shoppers in a busy bazaar.
Navigating Data Consumption
In graduate courses and consulting engagements, I’ve found that explaining data consumption to individuals with varying levels of data literacy can be challenging.
Effective report and data requirements go beyond mere request submissions. They involve complex business and data capabilities such as business strategy, knowledge of critical success factors, KPIs, OKRs, metadata, data science, and ethical concerns.
Analogies, such as comparing data consumption to a bustling bazaar, offer quick insights. Like a vibrant marketplace, managing data consumption demands robust oversight, continuous monitoring, and enduring partnerships for sustained, productive operations. This analogy simplifies complex concepts and highlights interdependencies.
Let’s explore the intricacies of data consumption through diverse lenses:
Core Product/Service: At the heart of the analogy lies the core product or service, which corresponds with the Emporium in the marketplace. The Emporium is a specialized stall selling our company’s product: a magic lamp. It’s not just a product but a gateway to a connected lifestyle, promising to make our home more efficient, secure, and comfortable. It will fulfill wishes and transform our lives. The core product influences every aspect of our marketplace, from the Town Criers (Marketing) crafting enticing stories about the lamps’ powers to the Alchemists (R&D) working on the next generation of even more magical devices.
C-Suite Executives: Whether in flat or hierarchical organizations, leaders oversee and consume high-level, aggregated data to guide the organization’s direction, much like rulers making decisions that affect a whole city-state. Both leaders are focused on managing supply and demand within regulations, which can lead to risks and losses when mismanaged.
Marketing Managers: Marketers seek customer behavior data and market insights to craft compelling messages, adapting their proclamations to changing public sentiment. They are the marketplace’s Town Criers and public announcers.
Sales Representatives: Expert negotiators adept at closing deals, sales reps utilize real-time data on leads and product performance to entice interest and influence buying behavior. This can be compared to merchant traders who know exactly when to offer a better price or highlight a product’s unique features.
Human Resources: Analyze employee performance and engagement data to foster workplace culture and ensure the marketplace remains a harmonious and productive environment. Imagine them as the bazaar’s social fabric maintainers.
Operations Managers: These behind-the-scenes orchestrators optimize processes and manage supply chains using operational data, ensuring goods flow smoothly from caravans to stalls to customers. Think of them as the urban planners of the marketplace.
Product Managers: leverage user feedback and market research to guide product development, constantly refining their wares to meet changing customer needs. Picture them as the marketplace’s skilled artisans.
Financial Analysts: deeply understand the organization’s economic currents. They analyze revenue, cost, and market financial data to guide fiscal decisions. Think of them as the realm’s treasurers and keepers of the coffers.
Customer Service Representatives: Using customer history and service metrics to provide personalized support, customer service representatives ensure visitors leave satisfied and eager to return. Think of them as the welcoming faces at the main gates.
Legal and Compliance Officers: monitor contracts, regulations, and compliance data to protect the organization, ensuring all traders adhere to established laws. Like Guild Regulators, they are the arbiters of the marketplace’s rules and traditions.
Research and Development Teams: Always experimenting with new perspectives, researchers utilize experimental data and technological trends to drive innovation, creating the following must-have items. Picture them as the alchemists working in a mysterious workshop at the edge of the marketplace.
Business Intelligence Analysts: Analysts convert raw data into insights for various departments, helping everyone understand the bigger picture. These are the marketplace’s chroniclers and scribes, transforming the day’s events into actionable scrolls.
Risk Management Teams: They analyze data to identify and mitigate potential organizational risks. Imagine them as the marketplace’s fortune-tellers, constantly scanning the stars for omens.
Supply Chain Managers: use data to optimize inventory levels and streamline logistics, ensuring the marketplace never runs short of goods. Think of them as the organizers of the great trade caravans that supply the souk.
Quality Assurance Teams: leverage data to maintain and improve product or service quality, ensuring customers always get what they pay for. Picture them as the experts who certify the quality of goods in the bazaar.
IT Managers: monitor system performance data to ensure the smooth operation of the data ecosystem, much like ensuring the marketplace’s buildings and aqueducts are always in good repair. Imagine them as the master builders of the marketplace’s physical structures.
Customer Experience Managers: analyze customer feedback and interaction data to improve overall experience, ensuring visitors always leave with a positive impression of the realm. Like royal emissaries, these are the keepers of the kingdom’s reputation.
Procurement Officers: utilize supplier performance data and market trends to optimize purchasing decisions, ensuring the marketplace always offers the most coveted items at competitive prices. Like spice hunters and explorers, they are always looking for exotic goods.
This cheeky description and rich tapestry of roles illustrates an organization's diverse landscape of data consumption, viewed through the lens of an ancient marketplace. Each “vendor” in our bazaar has unique needs and contributes to the overall data ecosystem in distinct ways.
Organizations can better tailor their data strategies to meet diverse needs by understanding these various roles and their data consumption patterns. This approach ensures that data becomes a valuable asset across all levels of the organization, driving informed decision-making and fostering a data-driven culture reminiscent of the bustling commerce of ancient marketplaces.
References
- Redman, T. C. (2008). “Data Driven: Profiting from Your Most Important Business Asset.” Harvard Business Press.
2. Davenport, T. H., & Prusak, L. (2000). “Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know.” Harvard Business Press.
3. Ladley, J. (2019). “Data Governance: How to Design, Deploy, and Sustain an Effective Data Governance Program.” Academic Press.
4. Gartner. (2021). “Market Guide for Data Integration Tools.”
5. O’Neil, C. (2016). “Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy.” Crown.
6. Taleb, N. N. (2012). “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.” Random House.
7. Eckerson, W. & Sherman, R. (2021). “A Practical Guide to Managing Reference Data.” Technics Publications.
8. The analogy was inspired by Willem Koenders real estate analogy for data management, which he generously let me reprint in my recent publication of Driving Data Projects.
CHRISTINE HASKELL, PhD, has worked in the technology industry for nearly thirty years, delivering data-driven innovation, including at Microsoft, as the company shifted to Big Data and Cloud Computing in the 2000s. She teaches graduate courses in informatics at Washington State University’s Carson School of Business and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Washington’s iSchool.
ALSO BY CHRISTINE Driving Your Self-Reflection (2021), Driving Results Through Others (2021), and Driving Data Projects: A comprehensive guide (2024).
