UBC WAA - Creating a Data-Driven Business Culture

Problems I face

This is clearly a sticky situation and one which is going to test not only my powers of persuasion but quite likely my patience and perseverance too.
For one thing, the fact that the CMO has returned, full of the joys of spring from the conference suggesting I “champion” the “idea” of actionable web analytics and a customer-centric focus rather casts a cloud over my own wa efforts to date. After all, I have been “reporting a variety of statistics up the chain for the last 6 months, but rarely see .. numbers being used to drive decisions” - so it seems that my reports are either not being perceived as useful or are not what they want.
(Little wonder then, given that my work has fallen on deaf ideas, why I have already been considering the validity of my current role in keeping with, according to wa industry survey data, 50% of respondents who had considered switching jobs in the last 6 months.) or as Vicky Brock, Highland Business Research, put it succinctly: “they switch off at the term web analytics, as though it siloed off somewhere else for another team or supplier to deal with."
In best case scenario, this latest rejoinder sounds like the inevitable immediate enthusiasm which spouts following a particularly invigorating conference when she’ll regale me with “how web analytics isn’t hard”/ how we all need to “do web analytics 2.0” etc. I could go on.

Then again, there could always be more truth to this than meets the eye: after all, for the past 6 months I have been ““reporting a variety of statistics up the chain”; in which case, in the cold light of day, there is always the possibility that my reports really are just that; backward looking clickstream data which is really just number crunching without adding any real insight (:in which case, I am grateful that I have not been found out yet, by virtue of Gizmo being profitable…)

Regardless of which of these might be the case, the gauntlet has now been laid and it is my job to approach it in such a way that my actions now don't draw undue attention to my own possible previous shortcomings (:I need an income...) but at the same time I realise that, by pushing all the buzzwords that she herself is using, I can perhaps find a way to re-frame my own actions and hook them on her newly found enthusiasm for wa and, in particular, “customer analytics”.

So, it’s not just about web analytics but customer analytics. Despite my cynicism towards her newly-found enthusiasm, this emphasis on the customer has to be encouraging; the one nugget of hope in what could otherwise be a desert of opportunity. This has to be the hook on which to build.
Web analytics as we know it is dead : insights rule ok.

So, at least, even at this stage I have the backing of my boss (*though goodness only knows why this was not the case before…) but at least now we can claim to be singing from the same hymn sheet: we both want action to be taken on the basis of web analytics and to create a customer-centric view. Her support will be key when pushing this up through the chain.

Strategy
  • 1. Keep the CMO on side
    I realise that if this initiative has any push to it at all, I’m going to have to keep my boss on side as she has the power to push this through up the higher echelons (-I can’t)
    Clearly, my voice alone on ‘actionable web analytics’ is not enough, so I realise that what hits her buttons are 'authoritative others'. I want to make her feel that her discovery of actionable web analytics is absolutely right and that she is following in the steps of others who are leaders in the field.
    Again, I would say this is more a case of psychology : the one thing I can grasp onto at this point is to try to harness the CMO’s new found enthusiasm : after all, it is quite likely that at the conference, leading wa thought gurus might have spoken / been talked of highly, in which case I might want to use their recommendations as ‘best practice’ - ie, even something as simple as the WWAD principle (“What Would Avinash Do”) , even on as simple a basis as suggesting a survey. Dragging in best practices from outside would likely hold hold more persuasive power than the utterances of Gizmos Ltd WA Manager.

  • 2. Spring Clean KPIs and Business Objectives
    With the moral/political backing of the CMO, I would then suggest to her that we perhaps initiate a process to incorporate all her excellent suggestions and take the opportunity to spring-clean our approach, all with the aim of improving the company’s internal processes and ultimately, the bottom line.
    So, an entirely bottom up approach which means revisiting all the areas which normally might be perceived as being too basic to bother with at this stage in time (such as clarifying KPIs /business objectives and pain points for each Gizmo dept).
    The advantage of doing this is that it entitles me to ask all the questions that I (perhaps did not ask at the beginning which I should have) without losing face and looking like I really don’t know what I am doing.....(which is always possible...)
    If I have genuinely been doing something wrong for the past 6 months, which could at least partially explain why my reports have not been acted on, then now is the time to get it right. Done under the aegis of a new broom sweeping clean, it might even make me look really proactive.

  • 3. Use the Customer as the focus/impetus for change
    Realistically, I realise that Gizmo’s is not all of a sudden going to be able to spring fully formed into action and commence A/B and Multivariate Testing which is a little too advanced at this stage.
    What I need at this early stage is another voice which backs up the argument that customer-centricity needs to be the focus.
    That voice is the voice of the customer.
    So, even something as simple as moving into collecting Qualitative data (for example surveys or usability testing), the point here is that this will start to flag up why Gizmo’s is wrong about why our visitors come to our website and what they can and can’t accomplish.
    I might even be lucky enough to stretch to getting backing for a usability study which give a picture of a real customer telling the HiPPO’s how it really is. Nothing is more powerful than a customer’s voice, backed by data from 100,000 other people trying to do the same thing. I can even suggest cheaper alternatives. www.ethnio.com
    By being incessantly focussed on Gizmo customers and dragging their voice to the table (for example even at this stage with testing and via open ended survey questions) :Very few people, HiPPO’s included, can argue with a customer’s voice.

  • 4. Use the Customer as the focus/impetus for change
    Other things which I would really like to do but will have to watch how things go before I suggest them as possibilities include:
    • attending departmental meetings to demonstrate interest/curry favour and find out information
    • start to include internal and external benchmarks
    • implementing, or more likely, re-stating a process: who's responsible for what and what deliverables are expected

    I am not entirely sure that I have a specific timeframe for these, purely as their existence/value depends on a wider understanding of why actionable analytics is important, as evidenced by (hopefully) an early success which we could use as an internal case study and moral/political springboard to foster other initiatives such as these.
    Identification and Mitigation of Potential Pitfalls

  • 1. Loss of CMO backing
    Should this newly found enthusiasm simply be a flash in the pan or disappear before concrete results can be realised (however small), I realise that all possibility of trying to create an environment which thrives on actionable insight will be pretty much futile.
    I will be back where I was for the past 6 months, passing on reports which no one acts on. So, I need to get a result, however small, pretty fast.

  • 2. Lack of a quick, positive result
    I am also aware that even or especially if I commence with these customer-focused initiatives to gain more insight, if I don’t get a result fairly quickly, this could impact on the likelihood for support to continue. E.g. what happens if I do not get enough survey results to be worthwhile? I might want to suggest creating some form of incentive for Gizmo users to bother. (E.g. as per this example: win an ipod )

  • 3. Unrealistic Expectations
    On the opposite end of the spectrum, I could also find that the CMO has entirely unrealistic expectations, thinking that analyses can be performed overnight or making ‘helpful suggestions’ which realistically I am not going to be able to fulfil at the drop of a hat.
    This is just as dangerous as having no expectations at all and reiterates the need even more strongly to set up (if it has not been done already) or at least go through and clarify exactly what the system/process is for making and tracking requests.

  • 4. Winning the battle and losing the war
    Ultimately, if things don’t change even with the support of the CMO, I might want to question the overall value of my continued involvement with a Company where my role is seen as essentially superfluous to the core function of the business.
    For a start, I would also question the fact that if the Chief Marketing Officer has only just woken up to the possibility of using wa (6 months on since I have been there ), it would really make me want to question, realistically, just how much they would miss me.
    As such, I would be keeping my ear to the ground on the wa yahoo groups board and make sure that my linkedin profile and cv was up-to-date.