Creating Value
From Data
Five Years Of Experience In One Page!
173tech are celebrating five years in business and as such we have been analysing over the over 400 businesses we’ve spoken to in this time to try and unlock some key themes and core advice. We have broken each section into the reasons people contact 173tech, the common issues, the route causes we discovered, and then our key advice.
Starting With Data
We speak to hundreds of companies each year who are looking to get started with data. More and more people are recognising that there is a limit in using in-tool reports which means they are not served key business metrics in a timely fashion. The problem for many businesses is that it is difficult to tie ROI into setting up the infrastructure needed, and so it is often de-prioritised.
Overview
Top Issues
Root Causes
We identified cost as being the biggest blocker to value, which often creates a chicken and egg scenario in which companies allocate budget towards growth, but then upon growing wish they had put in analytics to prevent wastage.
We also saw that businesses that opted for ‘all-in-one’ or SaaS tools were unhappy with the results, and looked to change after less than a year. Whilst hiring internally or hiring a freelancer was a good solution for a few years, often companies needed to start from scratch afterwards as non-scaleable infrastructure was built.
Key Advice
Concentrating your budget on growth makes sense, but leads to wastage as you scale.
It is more difficult to align ROI from data where business strategy is not yet crystal clear.
Companies build in a hap-hazard way will incur a high amount of technical debt.
Strategy
When businesses come to us with strategic problems, often their perception and reality do not match. While the symptoms may be people not using data tools or messy infrastructure, the underlying issues we see time and time again are that; data initiatives are carried out without an understanding of business impact, data tools are selected without the involvement of business users, and as soon as trust in data slips it is incredibly difficult to rebuild it.
Overview
Top Issues
Root Causes
We identified alignment with business as being the biggest blocker to value. Too often stakeholders ask for adhoc data pulls, reports or dashboards all of which have an ongoing time and cost in maintenance associated with them. This crucially prevent data teams from carrying out work that will provide value to the business.
These issues often compound to messy infrastructure which ultimately becomes a burden and cost to the business and may need to be refactored later.
Key Advice
Ensure that you have clear business objectives and KPIs before trying to match with data.
Self-hosting and custom elements add a significant burden on your analytics teams in the long run.
Be sure to involve your end users when selecting BI tools and consider what outputs are needed.
Technology
There are hundreds of data tools out there which all promise the earth, and if you are not actively using/testing them it can be a minefield to understand the pros and cons of each one. We consider that perhaps the most essential element of the entire data pipeline is the modelling. Many of the issues that businesses come to us with such as slow loading dashboards or a lack of bespoke metrics all come down to not having a modelling layer, or using the modelling capabilities inside other tools.
Overview
Top Issues
Root Causes
We identified scalability as being the biggest blocker to value. Many businesses do not factor in the fact that their data needs will grow, and so choose tools which are cost-effective today but not in the future, forcing them to chop and change technologies. Whilst they are busy migrating, the data teams are not delivering value.
Going back to strategy, tools are often blamed for lack of business adoption but before switching, check what that the actual need is from users and the ultimate outcome. It is not a good idea to switch tools every few years.
Key Advice
Your business model and key priorities should be factored in when choosing tools.
Choose a composable stack and ensure that scaleability is a key factor you consider.
Consider how easy it is to hire people when choosing technology and stick to tools that rely on known languages.
People
We firmly believe that no agency can ever replace internal teams, as they will understand your day-to-day problems, questions and business model in depth. This being said, finding experienced data is a key challenge for many businesses and so understanding when to plug in external help is key.
Overview
Top Issues
Root Causes
We identified democratisation as being the biggest blocker to value. Demand has outstripped supply for data talent since 2016 and so typically data people are small in number but with multiple stakeholders and priorities. Organisations are then struggling to bridge the gap between business functions and data teams.
Even a little bit of knowledge from business users can help to protect the data team’s time and efforts away from adhoc efforts and ensure business ROI is embedded into every data iniative.
Key Advice
Build your analytics capability iteratively and expand resources in line with customer growth.
Think of fun ways such as hackathons and challenges so people can learn your toolset better.
Documentation and best practices are key when growing your team in a sustainable way.
How 173tech Can Help
173tech is a london-based analytics agency that helps growing businesses worldwide leverage data. We augment busy teams to help centralise, analyse and activate data from across the customer journey. No matter your size or sector we can help you find high value data projects and implement quickly.
A clear data roadmap for your strategy, people & tech.
Jumpstart your end-to-end data pipeline.
Get, keep and grow your customer base with granular analytics.
Get in touch today about your analytics projects.
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