The data-driven organisation

As I may have mentioned before, I worked a good number of years for DHL (a multinational, wholly owned by Deutsche Post, with an annual turnover of AUD $7bn), in various European senior marketing roles. Since moving to Sydney, I’ve worked on the other side of the fence, both in research and advertising agencies, and, having worked with a number of clients, I’ve come to the view that DHL was a highly data-driven organisation.

I believe many Australian businesses would benefit from instilling a stronger culture of analysis within their organisation, by adopting some of the following practices employed by DHL:

DHL used business goals to drive decision making.

One of the common problems with analysing data is that companies look at their numbers without putting them in the context of their overall business. As a result, when they receive an analytics report (often in a crisp, new binder with colourful, attractive charts) they sift through it without knowing what it means to their bottom line. Data-driven organisations make sure that goals and metrics are defined and agreed on, and they communicate them to everyone according to role.

Data-driven organisations never rely solely on gut feelings.

For sure, data and research will never give you definitive answers. However, making educated decisions based on analytics-driven insight will help you meet your goals. This doesn’t mean you should throw your experience out the window. But you should be honest with yourself about what you really know and don’t know. I have observed many clients mistake their own personal likes and dislikes for insights in customer behaviour.

Successful data driven organisations spend money in the right places and in the right way. As a result they can justify every marketing dollar they invest and tie it to business goals and KPIs.

For example, instead of putting millions of dollars every year into a full website redesign, they target their spending according to where it will be most effective. To do this, you first need to identify which aspects of your website are most important in driving your business. Let’s say you have a lead generation site that tries to get visitors interested in you offerings so they will request a meeting with a sales rep. Every upgrade you make to the site should improve the way it converts your visitors into high quality leads. Your efforts may involve highlighting calls to action or streamlining request forms so that it’s easier to separate good prospects from bad.

Companies like DHL that are serious about data also use analytics to maximise their ROI for online and offline initiatives. If you have an underperforming marketing campaign, you should reallocate resources to areas that have a better probability of success. That way you’ll always be sure you’re investing wisely and strategically in areas that drive your business goals.

In a data-driven organisation, every team, business unit and individual operates under a unified, global set of standards.

To do this, you need to set overall business goals and metrics. Then you assign different groups in the company their own targets and metrics based on how their works impacts the top-level goals. This process continues down the chain of command until it reaches individual employees. In the end, everyone is aware of how their actions contribute to the success of the company. I’ve found that once people and departments have clear and specific metrics to define their success, they tend to have an entirely different (and often much more motivated) approach to their work.

Whenever a data-driven organisation launches an initiative or campaign, it has already put together a forecast of its potential impact on the business and bottom line. When these projects are complete, the organisation also wants to know how the outcome of the project compared to earlier estimates. For this, you need to include a full post-launch analysis in your process. You should not only focus on the outcome but also use the opportunity to look at the forecasting process. Are you making accurate predications and if not, why?

The Secret of Spin

Just finished reading Barack Obama’s ‘life story’ Dreams from my Father. As he does on the Telly, in his writing he comes across well. I was left with the distinct impression that he is a thoughtful, diligent and considerate person. Above all, he seems like a decent human being who plays with a straight bat.

But the sceptic in me kept asking, Am I being played, in a good way or bad? For goodness’ sake, he’s a lawyer and a politician (and we all know politicians don’t lie straight in bed). Was the entire book a brilliant piece of spin doctoring? Like a good spin doctor, had he worked out the questions to come, and the kind of replies he needed to make in his build up to be President of the United States.

Some years ago I was told a story by someone who was brilliant at working an angle:

A customs officer stopped a youg boy who was cycling from Mexico into California. Across the handlebars of his bicycle he had two great big sacks. And of course the customs officer threw up his arm – drugs being blatantly taken across the border! “What’s in the bags?” “Sand.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah.” “All right, let’s empthy the bags out here.” So he emptied the bags out and it was sand.

The customs officer couldn’t see anything wrong, so he let the boy put the sand back in, searched him, and watched him pedal into California.

This happened every week. Every Monday, along came this boy on his bicycle, and the customs officer examined the bags and found nothing wrong.

Finally, the customs officer became so frustrated he said, “ Look, I know your putting something across me here. We examine these bags and search you every time you cross, now what are you taking across the border?”And the boy thought for a moment and said: “New bicycles”.

Now that was a great bit of spin. All the attention was directed onto something else. How do you put an angle on something?

Some of the best examples come in speeches. When Martin Luther King said: “I have a dream, my friends,” it was a great piece of spin doctoring. It was putting the right words in the right place to the right audience. Obama’s more recent “Yes we can” mantra is pure spin.

Spin has been around a long time. I think it was Goebbels who said: “Tell a lie often enough and everyone will believe it”. That’s not true anymore. Sooner or later people are going to start asking: “Is that right? Has the emperor got clothes on?” With greater access to information, people are more sophisticated today and it doesn’t work.

An example of spin doctoring gone wrong was when Richard Nixon was advised to go on the Telly and say: “I am not a crook”. It was like, if you could fake sincerity then you’ve got it made. But Tricky Dicky looked like a sweaty crook and everybody could see it. It was bad advice.

So what are the characteristics of successful spin doctoring? To my mind, there are few points:

The first is, be genuine. Simple communication and absolute straight up integrity and honesty is key.

Two, it has to be a presentation, not a show. You can’t put on the falsity of a show. Abraham Lincoln said: “I couldn’t be two-faced, because if I had two faces I sure wouldn’t wear this one”. Straight up works best.

Third, you have to understand what your message is. Obama’s message was “Vote for Change”, a clear, simple message that made him different. People instantly knew what he stood for.

Fourth, you have to be able to see yourself as other people see you and be prepared to laugh at yourself. I remember reading a piece by the acerbic Alan Clark, the craggy old Tory MP, who described an official dinner in Peru. The host thought it would be nice to give Alan a British toast, so everyone took up their glasses and said: “Up your bottom.” Sir Alan took up his glass and replied: “Up yours”.

And finally, good spin doctoring is nearly always 90% positive. I remember reading a piece about “that woman” as I call her, Margaret Thatcher. Working on a speech, an advisor said: “I don’t like that bit”. “Don’t you, what would you put in its place?” “Well…” “Don’t waste my time. I’ve got a country to run. If you’ve got something better to suggest, fine, let’s have it. Otherwise, shut up.” Knocking all the time doesn’t attract people to you, doesn’t attract the attention that you’re looking for, doesn’t give the image you want.

Obama’s book meets my criteria. So it was an excellent piece of spin doctoring. Whatever, it felt good reading it. Perhaps, this is the most important thing for a spin doctor to do - make people feel good. Obama has certainly done that.