Why Your Data & Analytics Support Is A Bit Like The Dentist
Please note: this is liable to be uncomfortable or even painful!
We will save you the discomfort of horrifying dental pictures. While they might be convincing, I find them difficult to stomach myself. You see once upon a time, I avoided the dentist for nearly a decade. It was a huge mistake. As an analyst, I should have known better. You see, the two professions have some major similarities.
Are you feeling any discomfort?
“You haven’t started, yet “— is my go-to pun. But the right answer is no, I almost never do. That is why it was easy to avoid the dentist for so long. I had never had a cavity issue as a kid and I had no pain. Unfortunately, cavities and gum decay aren’t always painful — just corroding.
The Cavity Creeps certainly looked like they would create a lot of obvious feedback, but that was really as fanciful as the Crest cartoons that featured them.
Failing to take care of your teeth properly leads to a slow deterioration. One that inevitably ends poorly and often painfully. One you need to prevent early. Preventative medicine, we all know it is important. Though that doesn’t always make us do it.
Two Reasons Data & Analytic Neglect May Be Worse
Data issues don’t often create discomfort, in fact — they often prevent it
Much like my personal dental experience, ignoring data & analytics may actually forego some immediate discomfort. If you are not looking at your numbers and information, you aren’t likely to know how bad things are until they get really bad. For many, this is all the encouragement necessary to look the other way.
Unfortunately, the damage is building even if you aren’t feeling the pain. Further, the cost to repair it is growing as well. Much like your dental hygiene this is not a linear progression. Cumulative decay tends to produce exponential cost curves.
While paying the dentist isn’t fun — you likely don’t make your living with your teeth.
There are more and more studies linking dental hygiene to our overall health, but the reality is that you don’t require healthy teeth to pay your dentist. On the other hand, the cumulative decay that occurs at a company unwilling to investing in it data & analytic hygiene may prevent that company from growth, revenue, and cash flow.
In other words, the very issues you are ignoring may only come to light when they are so significant — they may block you from generating the revenue necessary to repair them. That is a bitter irony that I have had to watch far too many business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives come to grips with. All because they didn’t invest in a little preventative care.
Discomfort isn’t fun. Typically it is also not funny. But avoiding it for years is likely to be far worse. That will include both the cost to repair years of neglect and the pain that will come with it.
Go to your dentist regularly. But also invest in an data & analytic service level that will provide the same care and support for your business. Trust me, you will never regret it. But if you are still thinking — “I can wait”…? Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you about the pain and expense that will follow.
The Data & Analytic dentists are in:
