Just like Formula 1 racing heavily relies on data to optimize performance, gain a competitive edge and secure victories, a business can harness the power of its data to drive growth, efficiency and profitability. Data-driven insights empower decision-making at every organizational level, and particularly at the C-Suite, to embody the adage that "knowledge is power."
A prime example is EIKON Group, a global leader in content mastering, localization and distribution in the Entertainment and Media sector. By harnessing data to evaluate key metrics and performance indicators daily, EIKON Group’s team ensures its operations are optimized for peak performance.
GHJ interviewed Jon Gardner, CIO of EIKON Group, about the significance of data-driven decision-making and key considerations for adopting this approach within the organization.
How do you define a data-driven approach in the context of your company’s strategy?
In the context of EIKON’s strategy, everything is data. A data-driven approach means leveraging every piece of information collected throughout business processes. This comprehensive use of data has led to the development of a proprietary project management system that integrates data from various sources and enhances operational efficiency. Whether it is internal systems or client projects, there is a significant advantage when a business is able to tap into the wealth of information that can be collected throughout all of the business cycles.
What challenges have you faced in implementing a data-driven approach?
One major challenge is choosing systems with compatible APIs (application programming interfaces) that allow different software to communicate seamlessly. This integration is crucial for effective data management and analysis as opposed to pushing new workflows into legacy systems.
However, the biggest challenge comes after all of the systems are connected and talking to each other: how does one interpret, analyze and ultimately leverage this wealth of information?
How do you balance massive amounts of information and turn them into data-driven insights with other factors such as intuition and experience?
This is where a human review of data, particularly with experienced personnel (managers, SVPs and C-Suite), is absolutely critical. This intuition along with combining several years of data — such as timing for similar jobs or skill sets of available personnel — can be leveraged to make optimal decisions on resource allocation and capacity to take on new projects from customers or leverage overtime appropriately.
What are some of the underlying trends and findings that have become apparent that were unknown prior to reviewing the data?
In relation to capacity and skill sets, one of the most interesting trends arose when the Skillset tracker of the staff, which denotes tenure with the company and previous tasks worked on, was overlaid over a project to assess areas for learning opportunities or reallocation of resources. For example, if a staff with six months of experience that can perform the task in 2.5 hours was on a job that needed to be done in an hour, the operator can be swapped out with a more experienced staff in real time.
Another critical finding related to benchmarking of time to complete specific tasks in the workflow. With access to this data, management is better able to assess revenue opportunities instead of simply looking at averages to complete a task.
How do you foster a culture of data-driven decision-making within the organization?
Creating a culture that values data-driven decision-making involves promoting curiosity and continuous improvement. At EIKON, senior management’s vision for a data-centric company guides the integration of data into all aspects of the business. Senior management at EIKON had a vision of what type of company they wanted to build, and this served as the backbone of data to support the growth of the company.
How do you measure the success of data-driven initiatives?
With the power of the project management system, EIKON is easily able to assess the capacity of client projects/personnel and reassign resources as appropriate. Through assessment of the capacity, management is easily able to forecast how many projects can be accomplished in a designated time period across all of their customers, which gives customers insight into when they can expect the work to be completed with significant accuracy. This, in turn, assists with planning and capacity for their customers.
Another major success was the automation of the work-order process that previously took staff 20-25 minutes to set up for each project. It has been completely automated and resulted in time savings on each work order for each project.
How do you see the role of data evolving in shaping your company’s future direction?
This is a new challenge that has arisen now that the project management system is built as there are over 100 projects that can be assessed resulting in significant untapped potential. Looking ahead, EIKON sees immense potential in leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze the large data sets. Prioritizing future projects that harness these technologies will be crucial for maintaining a competitive edge.
Overall, the C-Suite should prioritize a data-driven mindset to unlock the potential of their business. Data analytics gives invaluable insights into all levels of an organization but particularly to the C-Suite. This creates an environment of informed decision-makers who can run the business in an efficient and effective manner.
Discover how data can transform your business by reaching out to GHJ’s Data Analytics Practice. GHJ’s experts help business leaders implement data-driven strategies to maximize efficiency and drive growth.
