How Data Opens New Doors for Companies

Hello and welcome back to Chronicles from a Caribbean Cuba podcast. My name is Francis Wade, and here's an article I wrote for the Jamaica Gleaner. It's entitled How Data Opens New Doors for Companies. In the past few years, what opportunities has the shift to online business created for local companies? Your firm may be automating its processes but is it also converting the data being collected into competitive advantage? In 2003, I started a virtual organization, CaribHR Forum. With less than 10 people at the start, it drew together HR practitioners I met in the Caribbean on various trips. New online technologies were just emerging, and I believed they could be used to close the distance. Consequently, we adopted a centralized online mailing list to initiate a region-wide discussion. The small group grew to add a website and a podcast, CaribHR Radio, but the rapid growth outgrew the tools we used and became overwhelming. Thankfully, newer technology emerged in 2019 in the form of virtual community software. Mighty Networks. For the first time, an affordable private internet platform could bring together thousands in the same space. That same year, by coincidence, I apprenticed behind the scenes of a virtual conference. While I had been a speaker at prior events, now I learned how to host a summit or big event. It was a thrill, and I vowed to make it available to the members of the Caribbean HR Forum. Then COVID-19 hit and interest in online networks grew. It hasn't stopped. Caribbean HR Forum recently concluded its second virtual conference, one of the biggest in the region. With free registration, thousands are able to connect with HR experts, consultants, and colleagues for the very first time. But this is only the public side of the story. Hidden away from view, an important inner transformation based on data is also underway. Number 1: Industry data using LinkedIn. What are the drivers of customer behavior in your industry? You may want to have more than anecdotes to make decisions but don't have access to anything concrete. We had the same problem, but the platforms we use have obliged by developing better data and analytic capabilities. For example, on LinkedIn, we have learned that there are 23,000 HR professionals in the region spread across 21 territories and countries. By offering multiple LinkedIn events on a range of topics, the platform tells us what this cohort is interested in learning. Our webinars and conferences advertised on the social network have served as a continuous pipeline. Each one adds new potential members. The cost? Just our time, as the network doesn't charge for this service. Furthermore, we have run paid LinkedIn advertisements. While these are not cheap, they allow us to target each country's HR professionals with great precision. As such, we have steadily trained our LinkedIn account to recognize people in our audience. Now it's a valuable tool, an analytic partner that outstrips our use of Instagram, Facebook, and Google. But the point is that they all offer data which gives us powerful insight into our efforts and their results. They also track a storm of information on audience behavior—views, clicks, and conversions—which are impossible to gain from other face-to-face models. Together, we can paint a picture that becomes clearer as they add new features. Number 2: Community behavior using Mighty Networks. While social networks have become great assets, our community platform on Mighty Networks has also improved its analytics. Now we can track the overall behavior of our members as they transition from being newbies to more mature contributors. From this data, we're able to predict which new topics are trending. From there, we can tweak the member's journey and make timely improvements. As a result, we can better meet their overall purpose to become better professionals. The data indicates which events and training we should offer. Number 3: The end result, a new organization. What else do all these data-driven insights allow for? Apart from the obvious internal benefits to us as hosts, they also enable more pluses for potential sponsors. As we uncover deeper interpretations, we offer sponsors more than exposure. Today we can give them a better understanding of the audience and its unique behavior. In other words, the availability of analytics has transformed CaribHR Forum. Scaling up from our small example, you may see how any organization can transform itself using data. The mere existence of this new information could be disruptive to an industry. Perhaps your company is similar. You probably don't intend for it to become a data-driven organization, but as you conduct more online business, consider this outcome. In fact, you may not have a choice. The availability of fresh, easy-to-collect data in your industry could become a way for your company or a competitor to gain a permanent advantage. Don't hesitate to include this likely scenario in your strategic planning. Thanks for listening. Do you have an unsolved problem in your Caribbean company related to strategy, productivity, engagement, or business process improvement? Just visit a searchable listing of all my prior articles and you may be able to help yourself to a fresh line of thinking. Go to blog.fwconsulting.com or see the show notes.