Stow The Poop Emojis

I'm sick of memes featuring poop emojis to make the case for investing in data quality initiatives.  As if toddler humor is going to change the mindset of decision makers and check writers.

Grow up.

What influences business decisions to improve data quality is no different than any other business decision.

What's it going to cost?  What's the return on the investment?  What's the cost impact of not doing it?

Period.

The good news is that the premise of leveraging data for competitive advantage is widely accepted.  The bad news is that many data teams have failed to prove that value in a way that business leaders understand, and they consistently to counter subjective perspectives from an undifferentiated consumer market - damaging their brand reputation.

I'd love to see some of the posters on my feed make an appearance on Shark Tank.  They'd quickly discover the business value of cute decks with poop emojis as a means to sell investment in data quality.

You're convinced you're standing on the right side of history, but nebulous benefits and naivete aren't going to move the needle.  Concrete, quantifiable financial impacts will.

Early in my career, I took on a global services mindset that was taking over the Fortune 500.  My early attempts were based on clear evidence that the offshore model was ineffective, slow to deliver, burdened with administrative overhead, and produced defective outcomes.

The leadership who'd made the decision based on "guaranteed" cost reductions were unmoved by my qualitative evidence.

Fortunately, I reported to a leader who saw what I saw and challenged me to make a real business case they could sell upward - while also giving me information on the existing contract I didn't have.

Armed with that support and knowledge, I submitted a proposal to replace offshore resources with local talent that represented a 40% reduction in headcount at less than 50%  of labor cost to perform the function.  This projected to $750K savings per year.

It didn't matter that I'd also projected (and delivered) on significant improvements in delivery turnaround and product quality.  The decision was made solely on money saved on running the function. 

It also didn't matter that I didn't meet the projected timeline to achieve the cost savings. 

Why? 

Once I'd gotten the financial buy-in, I was able to prove the value of the changes being made.  Improved delivery and defect reduction rates, and problem resolution turnaround suddenly became important and highly visible.

Now the fact that I'd only achieved half of the promised cost reduction was overshadowed by an engaged, high-performing team making a qualitative impact on the consumer market.  I was already in the process of quantifying those impacts when I moved on to my next role.

The bottom line is that money talks and poop emojis walk.  Do the work to quantify the value of the changes you want to make, and do it in the short term.  The pace of business won't allow you three years to prove the benefits of improving your data quality.  Find the low hanging fruit and build reusable capabilities while racking up the quick wins.

Most importantly, show that what's evaporating from the steaming pile of poor quality data is dollars lost.