Leverage Your Data to Differentiate Your Business

What is your organization’s strawberry pop tart?

I know it is a weird question, but the answer may be a huge differentiator for your business or organization.

The cover of the February 2010 Economist issue was titled “Data Deluge”.   Although somewhat dated, the premise is valid now more than ever.  Without hesitation, I can tell you the companies I work with are collecting more data than ever and their thirst for more approaches insatiable.

The challenge is that companies are collecting more and more data but continue to struggle with what to do with it.  Many can’t figure out how to make sense of it all, especially if it sits in “one off” databases, in a spreadsheet on a local hard drive, or with vendors who don’t share it.

Now for the strawberry pop tart connection.  Wal-Mart is always in the conversation when massive amounts of data are concerned.  One article in the aforementioned Economist was devoted to the retail giant and explained how they use data to make informed decisions.

It described a scenario where a hurricane was headed for the southeastern US and Wal-Mart wanted to get in front of the expected pre-storm rush and stock up on products the local shoppers would need.

They looked at their data, ran some reports and probably did some modeling about what inventory moved the last time a hurricane hit and realized that shoppers were buying pop tarts, specifically strawberry pop tarts!

It is a simplistic example of how a retailer prepared to meet the needs of their customers given a certain set of circumstances that had occurred before.

What is the lesson here?  Organizations must be ready and poised to take advantage of all the data they are collecting.  They have to have the resources (people, money, and technology) to turn that raw data into actionable information the business can use to the mutual advantage of the business AND the customer.

So, what is your hidden nugget of data that can help you anticipate what your customers or donors will want from you?  It may not make sense or be the first thing you think of and it might just be the differentiator you need to be successful and relevant in a hyper competitive world.