The importance of data is known to all. However, implementing a data culture into a company is not easy, which most companies fail to do. Noshin Nawar interviewed Khan Muhammad Saqiful Alam, analytics adviser at Intelligent Machines Limited and guest lecturer at the Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka, to know how companies in Bangladesh can overcome this issue to derive the benefits of having a data culture.
Question (Q): Given the recent expansion of the data analytics industry, many companies are willing to adopt a data culture realising the benefits of it. In such an onset, what exactly does it mean to develop a data culture?
Answer (A): Before I explain what entails data culture, it is important to understand what does not count as organisational data culture. Several companies merely collect data and keep it with them in files without intending to use it for decision-making. This shows that they lack data culture in their organisation.
In contrast, a company looking to develop a data culture utilises data to justify its strategy, processes, and organisational decisions. In case data is not accessible, they try to acquire or collect the data for extracting insights.
Q: What are the challenges in the way of developing a data culture in Bangladeshi organisations? What are the optimal ways of overcoming such challenges?
A: In most Bangladeshi companies, many employees are accustomed to using their legacy systems and are satisfied with the status quo. Given how the new data-oriented systems may encroach on their staple ways of working, there remains resistance toward it which is the main challenge faced by companies aiming to develop a data culture.
The organisations that were able to overcome this challenge were blessed with change champions who attempted to make their organisation data-oriented in terms of using data tools to solve their problems. For instance, when Jeff Bezos was replaced by Andy Jassy as the CEO of Amazon, a lot of doors were opened. Jassy, being the former head of Amazon Web Services, could take the role of the change-maker who can shift Amazon and the world at large toward web services. Companies in Bangladesh need such change champions to develop organisational data culture.
Now the question arises: who could be this ideal change champion in Bangladesh? This change champion should be someone with two sets of skills: they must have the required technical know-how and they should be able to translate the benefits of developing a data culture to the management.
Q: In your opinion, what key characteristics should an organisation have in order to develop a data culture?
A: To foster data culture, organisations should have three characteristics. Firstly, C-suite executives of an organisation should be appreciative of data-driven decision making. Otherwise, the leadership may discard evidence from data, refusing to change their initial ideas. To avoid situations like this, there should be training for the C-suite executives to educate them on what to do with data, what tools to use, and what benefits can be derived from data.
Secondly, companies should allocate resources to remove constraints to acquire data, use systems to query data, and build warehouses. Thirdly, organisations should build a Business Intelligence (BI) team as per their requirement. I should stress that this team is not required to possess high levels of technical know-how but should be comfortable with simpler data skills such as storytelling with data, visualisations, and generating data summaries using basic statistics.
Q: In traditional Bangladeshi organisations, decision-making and strategising are usually done by the upper-level management. Given how the management can play a pivotal role in sustaining a data culture, what initiatives should they take in this regard? At the same time, how can Bangladeshi companies equip themselves with the resources to develop the key characteristics needed to develop a data culture?
A: Given the situation in Bangladesh, there are three ways in which organisations can obtain resources to adopt these characteristics. Firstly, to train their C-suite executives, companies should reach out to data professionals experienced in training employees who can use a blend of technical and business perspectives while imparting the training. It is important for the trainer to understand the bigger picture aside from the technical nitty-gritty.
Secondly, the upper-level management should push to hire data engineers to build data warehouses or data systems to identify and address the company's data needs. Thirdly, the management must ensure that their organisation's data team consists of employees whose skills are not limited to software engineering. These engineers should also possess enough business acumen to understand how to present data to drive decisions.
Q: In your opinion, are there particular industries in Bangladesh that would benefit most from developing a data culture?
A: The technological service industry in Bangladesh consisting of food delivery, ride-sharing, and e-commerce platforms would get the most marginal gains by sustaining a data culture. Garments and production industries also would benefit from the same. In these industries, insights can quickly be implemented once gaps are unearthed from the analysis.
The banking industry, on the other hand, would not benefit as much from developing a data culture at this point in time. Their slow pace of transitioning is justified since the classical financial methods have served them well so far and the nature of their business is sensitive.
Q: How much does the organisational openness to change complement the technical skills of data professionals in an organisation on the onset of a cultural overhaul such as this?
A: Openness to change is a key factor that must be present during such a transition. Data culture and digital transformation come about with the redesign of job roles and reengineering old ways of doing things. In absence of openness to change, there would remain layers of problems and resistance among all stakeholders involved.
The interviewer Noshin Nawar is a fourth-year BBA student at IBA (DU).
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