Why Your Data Is Like Cider!

Do you like apple cider?

As a data leader, or in fact, a leader of any business, you should!

Not from an alcoholic view point but from the perspective that it perfectly reflects the challenges faced by every business on their data.

That’s why I believe a business can learn a great deal about it’s data from the production of cider.

Let me explain…

I grew up in Taunton; the county town of Somerset, cultivator of farmers accents, and the home of Scrumpy’s cider.

It’s the last point, I want to build on here. Why? Because it is fundamentally linked to understanding the data in your business.

As a data leader, part of my role is to help the business understand what data is and why we need to harness it i.e. use it wisely to generate actionable insights – also known as data literacy. Inevitably some will grasp this quicker than others, but unless all know what is trying to be achieved, the speed to success will be slower.

It was pondering the question of ‘how do I articulate the power of our data and the need to use it wisely in a way that everyone will understand?’ that I came up with the following analogy:

-         Leveraging your data is the same as the cider making process.

Picture this:

-         you own a cider business which has one factory and 4 orchards.

-         The orchards are surrounded by a wire fence

-         The factory has an old-style production press inside

-         And staff arrive each day to manually work the machinery

The output by the business is craft cider using local apples and which is tremendously supported by a select few customers.

At this point, you’ve either lost interest and stopped reading (oh well) or are intrigued to know more and are still with me… thank you!

Using this analogy, let me take you through the application to data within ANY business.

Firstly, the factory represents your data foundations; the data platform if you will, the main or central repository of the data you hold.

Secondly, each orchard represents a business unit, department or subsidiary company – all part of the same business but performing specific roles.

The easiest way to explain this is that each orchard produces different types of apples: granny smiths, gala, pink ladies etc. The are all apples but take different forms.

This perfectly reflects the data produced by departments; at it’s core it is all data but at the same time, it is different. Think of it as structured, semi-structured, unstructured, and multiple variations of each within those categories.

Thirdly, the wire fence represents the security surrounding your data. In this example, there is a fence but it is full of holes and easily navigated.

I hope your security protocols are not this poor but business’ often make the mistake of thinking ‘we have some security, so we’ll be fine.’

I’m sure if you asked your Data Protection Officer (DPO) he or she will tell you that the business needs to be protected at every juncture. Driven by the fact protocols only have to go wrong once for potentially enormous consequences to appear (often reputational being the first to be impacted).

Fourthly, the press reflects the quality of your technical infrastructure. The vintage hand press represents the legacy or technical debt companies have to perform every day activities.

More often than not, it is this equipment which needs to be replaced but is expensive and usually viewed as unsexy by the Business. The truth is, the lack of investment here will hinder revenue growth so generates a false economy, but many don’t appreciate that until it’s too late.

And finally, the staff represent your people. The single most valuable resource any business has.

Yes, data is a valuable (often untapped) resource but without the right people sharing your vision, your data will remain exactly that…untapped.

With all this in mind, let me take you through the production process:

ONE: Making cider starts with the apples; finding, collating and storing. If your data is an apple, my question to you is: ‘do you know where all the apples are?’

My assumption here is that the answer will be ‘no’.

Yes, apples grow on trees but they don’t all stay there! Some fall down, others could be hidden in bushes, or have fallen into ditches. Finding all the apples can be a real effort, especially if it is a manual process.

This is exactly the same as your data!

Some departments will know where their data is; others won’t.

A significant challenge faced by leaders is identifying and expending the effort to document where the apples are and the repeatable effort in collating them.

Surely, you don’t want to have to repeat a manually intensive process every time more apples are needed for the press?!

Takeaway: make sure you can document where all your apples are and the steps in collating them. By doing this once, you will save endless hours re-looking for them in the future.

TWO: Once we have identified where the apples are, we need to incorporate them in to the production process – this involves the quality checking process, also known as data governance.

It wouldn’t be wise to put mouldy or bruised apples into the press, and the same goes for poor or bad quality data going into our central repository.

Without having a robust and repeatable quality checking process, the quality of the cider produced will vary dramatically. And if really poor, we could lose customers as a result!

Therefore, knowing what to look for and the standards being applied to the checking of the apples will pay dividends in the future. From a data perspective, putting a name in a date field or a date which says 41/07/2019 has significant knock-on effects, even if not immediately felt by those responsible for it.

Takeaway: strong quality controls may take time to establish initially but the hours saved through future remediation (and potentially reputational damage) is significantly greater.

THREE: Once the right apples have been collated and quality checked, the production process of turning apples into cider begins. Initially the apples are sorted, dried and then passed into the press. From here, the current process involves workers turning the handle of a vintage apple press machine to squash and juice the apples. This is a very manually intensive.

Yes, juice is made but the ratio of apples input to juice output is likely to be far lower than our competitors. This could be confirmed through a benchmarking exercise.

We can call this our ETL (Extract Transform Load) process.

The effort to maintain the machinery through maintenance (both internal and external contracts), work arounds and tactical fixes become greater each month. In the same way that the drop in the price of bitcoin made the mining of it more expensive than the value of 1 bitcoin, the same can be said of data development.

The aim should always be ‘to do more with less’.

Yes, it’s an overly used tagline but the ethos of how can we be as productive as possible without spending unnecessary labour hours just ‘cranking the handle’. The reason being this effort does not generate revenue or cost savings; it is purely an expense.

Using this example, the answer seems obvious: replace the hand press machinery with up to date modern technology. But many businesses don’t appear to make the connection.

The cider is being produced but the effort of production is hidden from sight. As a customer, no-one cares how arduous the process is as long as they get what they are paying for. Customised luxury cars are another example: customer’s making modifications will still expect the car within a reasonable time period when paying a premium, irrespective of the effort in production.

Therefore, it makes sense to replace the hand press with a modern tool which can sort the apples, juice them and cast away the seeds without any manual involvement.

In the data world, using market leading solutions such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft cloud based technology, the opportunity to utilise this functionality can be achieved a fraction of the cost.

The cost comes from the time and effort to implement the new bit of kit with help (where necessary) from an expert.

We wouldn’t attempt to fit a new boiler without engaging a certified gas man, so why do businesses think that replacing an old temperamental boiler can be achieved on our own.

Takeaway: the longer a decision is put off to replace an old system with a modern fit-for-purpose one, the more painful and expensive the solution will become – whilst acknowledging the loss of potential revenue exists due to wasted productivity.

FOUR: The final piece of this puzzle is the staff coming in to work the manual machinery. Every day they come in because they love working for a home grown cider business; but frustrations quickly develop because they can’t do the job well.

They are hamstrung by the old machinery (or legacy systems), no matter how ingenious the work arounds are they employ.

In order to get the best out of your staff, they need to be ‘bought-in’; from a vision and direction perspective.

If you commit to investing in them, through bringing them into the decision making process (for a new press), take them on the journey (why we are doing this) and then giving them the tools to succeed (training for the new kit), the levels of productivity will inevitably rise.

I’d like to point out now, that I’m different to most in the data leader space.

I’m not here to tell you how good a framework is, or that a new bit of technology will solve all your problems (this is never true, no matter how compelling the vendor sell is!). No – I’m a huge advocate in your people need to be the focus.

Without the (right) people in your organisation, it doesn’t matter how good the tech or controls are, they will never be fully utilised.

It may sound slightly overdramatic but it’s true.

Ensuring that your people are championing your cause will pay far greater dividends than shoe-horning in a new software application.

A few years ago, a good friend worked at a very upmarket jewellery brand in London and was telling the story of how the marketing director convinced the Board to replace SAP (the finance system). The main driver being it was limiting the marketing team from selling more fine jewellery. This was a ludicrous suggestion in the first place but the decision was made and an SAP competitor was brought in at great expense.

Needless to say, 12 months later revenue had not vastly increased directly from the new system (success criteria were not defined up front which didn’t help!). Reflecting on the situation, Senior Management slowly came to the realisation that the system was not the problem, being able to use the system was!

Quite simply, the teams responsible for using the system had not been fully trained.

As a result, great expense was incurred with minimal tangible benefit realised. The company had not invested in their people: to understand what the real drivers were. Instead opting to throw money at the problem and ignore the investment in their people.

Everything is linked: like the body, a business is a system of systems.

I’m currently writing a book to explain this and other people insights in greater detail, so won’t dive into it here.

Takeaway: Bring your people on our journey as soon as possible. The opportunity cost of not doing so, will far outweigh the pain of getting them bought-in. You need your people to champion your cause. Failing to understand them and their drivers, means you will suffer as a business.

FIVE: The final part of cider production is the bottling. The process of taking all the ingredients and putting them in a format that can be used by the customer.

In the same way bottling cider makes it easily digestible for a consumer, putting your data into an easily usable and ‘digestible’ format is just as important.

‘Data Literacy’ is gaining more traction within businesses as the realisation in having and understanding data is one thing, but to use it to help argue a particular point (well) is another.

Whereas the production process for cider should be defined and repeatable, using the old machinery and the non-standardised apple input, means every batch of cider produced is different.

The result? A tactical fix to make it taste as required.

The tactical fix could be adding more sugar, reducing the alcohol content or increasing preservatives. Regardless of the action required, the adjustment is made on the output. So when the next batch is produced and it doesn’t taste as required, another tactical fix is needed.

This approach could happen on many many occasions.

Let’s take this and apply it to your data…

Upon collating and storing your business’ data, it needs to be output to the end users. A problem subsequently arises in that the data is not in a format the user needs or understands. Therefore a tactical fix is added to correct the problem.

Job done? Well no.

The next time a file is needed, the system spits out the data and again it is not in the desired format. But this time, the initial fix doesn’t entirely work. Therefore, another tactical fix is added (on the initial tactical fix) to produce the needed file.

This process is replicated, on multiple occasions across the business. It adds needless and unnecessary time and effort to a process which would be avoided.

Rather than continuously fix the output, why not fix the input? Solve it once, solve it well.

By spending the effort on correcting the input, you are not only addressing the root cause, but also improving quality along the way. So when an error or adjustment is needed, by doing so at the source system, means the flow of data will be correct downstream.

It seems obvious, but is often ignored…sighted as being too difficult, too time consuming or too expensive.

That’s fine, but the business will forever be hamstrung by system limitations!

Takeaway: Adding a tactical fix on a tactical fix only compounds the problem, especially when the focus is on the output, not the input. This delays, impinges and hinders business productivity in ways you may not always realise!

We have now finished the cider production and should be in a position to sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labour. You may have guessed, it is not as easy as that!

CONCLUSION: The point of telling this story is to highlight you may not know where your data is or have the most efficient process, but the longer you put off the addressing the issues will only cause more problems.

From my perspective, I would focus on your people first: define the vision and strategy, understand their concerns and desires and bring them squarely into the creation of this journey.

Not only will everyone involved know what you are trying to achieve and where you are going, but your data needs become considerably easier.

The question I’m going to leave you with is this: ‘are you investing for the long-term taking pain now to enable growth, or focusing on short-term wins for quick & unsustainable revenue gains?’

I won’t tell you which I think you should do…