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Episode Summary
The first series has the theme "Prepare for the intelligent future". Together with Michael Morton VP, Dell Fellow, Dell Technologies Data Strategy and Development, Mike Veldhuis talks about how to transform your company into an intelligent business. Listen through your favorite podcast app (Spotify here) or watch via YouTube.
The Checklist:
Want to know even more and ask your own questions? Then register for the (English) online Masterclass, provided by Michael Morton.
Episode Notes
The Platform Website: https://www.nalta.com/theplatform
All Nalta Blogs: https://www.nalta.com/blog
Host, Mike Veldhuis
https://www.nalta.com/mikeveldhuis
Guest, Michael J. Morton
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljmorton/
Transcript
Mike Veldhuis 0:00
You are listening to the platform. podcast to learn about our digital world. I am Mike Veldhuis, partner at Nalta.com.
Michael Morton 0:11
I'm Michael Morton, VP of Dell Technologies, data management and intelligence in Dell Technologies fellow.
Mike Veldhuis 0:19
Hi Michael, good to see you again. Great to see you. Episode Number three, and named Ready, set, go. And like we promised in our previous episodes, Today, we're gonna talk about how to become an intelligent business. I'm quite excited about this episode's. What about you?
Michael Morton 0:39
Very much. So this is it. This is the beef right here. This is this is the meat between the buns? Do it? Let's do it.
Mike Veldhuis 0:46
Yeah, I read this quote, like turning data into information into action. And I think that's basically what we're gonna do today. And we have a promise at the end of this episode, we'll give you a checklist of really stuff you can do about how you can achieve this goal. So but to kick it off. Last episode, we really talked a lot about culture in your organisation, what you can do to improve it to enable digitization into your company, creating an intelligent business. I think today, it's time to talk a little bit more about data and the data platform you have to create to organise all this stuff on top of it, and to create the value out of it. And when we talk about data, we're talking about Michael Morton. So where should we start?
Michael Morton 1:44
Oh, that's a really good question. Well, first, where you start is okay, we'll just do a little bit of a rehash of what we talked about in previous episodes. And that is, the critical thing is, what is it that you need to answer for the business? Okay, so let's think about a category, a very common one. If you are a business and you say, jeez, you're trying to grow, you have a product to sell, everybody has a product to sell. But who are you selling it to? You're selling it to your customer? But if you ask yourself? Do you really understand your customer? Or do you really understand the customers that you want to sell to? So a great place to start is just to start exploring the simple question of do you understand your customers, so you know how to sell better, you know how to service better, you know, how to innovate better, you know what data to use. So that's a really great place to start.
Mike Veldhuis 2:52
Okay. At the end of this podcast, in this episode, we're going to tie this example to the checklist. So what are exactly the steps you have to take to take off to make it a successful adventure, you know, but then again, the data platform where it starts, and we have the example, thinking about data, a couple of things popped into my mind, like security and trusting and owning, and good we are elaborate a little bit about that. Data. What is important, Michael?
Michael Morton 3:35
Okay. This is how I tend to think about it. And for me, like many other people, I'll try to use something a little bit humorous here, if you think about it, but data. It's almost intangible, right? It's not like a car, your house. But just think that you put a saddle on some data and you're riding data. That of course, you know, really invokes a unique image that people will think, yeah,
Mike Veldhuis 4:04
and saddle on your data,
Michael Morton 4:06
put a saddle on your data, okay. But here's the here's the important point. Important point is this. It's a lifecycle. That data was born someplace by an application probably. Or you could even say that data was born by a person, right? The person caused the data to be created. But just think data actually has a lifecycle. It was born, it was moved. It was changed. It was used over and over and over. So the most important thing is, okay, you just talked about trust. You could think about pedigree legacy. Is it truthful? Well, I guess that's part of trust. Are you even allowed to use it? That's another very tricky and important point is if you start using Data even within your own business, do you have the rights to use that data because maybe it's sensitive data, right? This world we live in around data privacy and policy has really changed the landscape around data significantly. And quite frankly, it will change it much more in the years to come, you see all kinds of things in the media. So our world around data is gonna change a lot. So back to life cycle is just think about the lifecycle of where you to get that data. Where was it born, all the way through to finally using that data to generate the answer that you seek. And that is a very, very complex life cycle, very complex.
Mike Veldhuis 5:42
I really enjoyed the thought about the birth of data you asked in the episodes. The first episodes you asked me, What device Do you touch? When you wake up? Which was my Apple Watch, actually, my phone? And the question is, is that my data? That's just the question that pops into my mind? Is it Apple's data? Or is it my data?
Michael Morton 6:09
Right?
Mike Veldhuis 6:10
Can I actually use this data? And that's like, a simple, maybe a simpler question or topic. But when we're dealing about companies, it's mega mega complex, because there are so many data sources, there's so much data you consume every day as a business, and probably not all of it is yours, right?
Michael Morton 6:38
That's correct. And you have, I'm just gonna say the phrase, here's here is likely, to me, the most critical skill in a business, the most needed technology is data governance. Everything around data governance is is just, that is the most important piece of the whole data lifecycle is how are you building and managing and your culture data? See, data governance is not just a technology, it's not just, you know, helping you understand the pedigree, the trustworthiness of your data that permeates all the way into your culture. Because if your culture has a lack of understanding of using data to solve a problem, because it's sensitive data, then you have culture problems. So data governance is, to me the most important and number one area to invest in as a business.
Mike Veldhuis 7:36
And what would be, Well, the first thing they should invest in is it's about tooling, or is it about people? And where to start?
Michael Morton 7:48
First of all, there there? There is no easy to answer to that. Unfortunately, yeah,
Mike Veldhuis 7:54
I I know that because it's so important. I really want to give our listeners at least a clue where to start.
Michael Morton 8:04
Okay, I'm going to I'm kind of conveniently go back to data lifecycle. You the business wants you to generate an answer to a question. So let's go back to our understand your customer. So can a business honestly say today? Which customers in which industries? And how do they use your product? Seems like a very simple question, but many businesses have no idea. And if you had the answers to that, I can give you a lot of insight. So starting with the question, is when you quickly start discovering, hey, what data do I need to understand my customer? Who are they? Where are they? What industry? Are they in? What's the other opportunities for me to either demonstrate that my product provides value in that industry for that customer? Could be anything? But it always starts with that data? What data? Do I need to answer that question? So to start, it's always important, because you'll know, which data do you need to start with, in which data do you need to start adding to?
Mike Veldhuis 9:12
And you can actually check whether it's your own or not? Correct? Makes sense? Makes sense? Makes sense? And, you know, our scope for this podcast series is pretty broad. And it's, we really want to give answers to the how, but it's about awareness as well. So by popping up these questions ourselves, we hope you as a listener, start thinking about, okay, I never thought about it, or I did think about it, but it's very well obvious. Now I should give it some more thought. And I think in the end, it's about creating this intelligent business and like we call it MVP your business need. So we discussed the question you want to get answered, you know, the data you can can use, we now got some idea awareness that it could be not your own data. So you shoot make sure it's it is your own data you are able to use it. And to, to get to the next steps, Michael, to launch this to really Get, set go It! my first item for the checklist would be create in your organisation create ownership and accountability for this MVP of your business needs. You agree?
Michael Morton 10:42
I agree. Because now that I'm thinking about it, I agree. Because this is the wonderful thing about you. And I when we bounce these things, I mean, sort of ad lib off each other as I listened to your words. And I immediately think the skills you need ownership and accountability, but that naturally brings, okay, now what skills do I need. And it quite frankly, the skills is a really hot commodity in the market. I mean, you you will notice that very interesting companies have many job openings, you know, for people that they need to help a business be an intelligent business leadership, you know, as well as technologist. So my answer is, yes, I agree with you 100%. Because in my mind, I map that to the skills getting the right people,
Mike Veldhuis 11:32
I got five items on my checklist, and the second one is allocate resources and, and then we most definitely talking about people and technology and and, and get the knowledge from outside, you know that that's one of the things we do as a company, we are enabling our customers to move faster, because we have the skills at Nalta you know, so it could be north, it could be another company. But make sure that the needed, resources are allocated inside the company, the tool sets the technology outside of the company. And my third item on the list would be measurable timelines. So make perfectly clear what you're aiming for. Put that in a very clear shedule that everybody can measure , we'll come back to the everybody part probably in Episode Four. But to the company, it's perfectly clear what you're aiming for. And how in what time frame you're going to achieve those goals. So very transparent. And then we're actually on the go part, Michael. I think the the fourth item on the checklist would be implement, right?
Michael Morton 13:07
Yeah. Right. Start, what do you what do you need to produce the answers? Yeah, implement? What technology do you need? Is it technology that you can trust? Not only the data, but you know, people might be eager to pull open source solutions off the shelf. So you have many considerations about Okay, can I trust the tools? So you need implementation? It sounds so obvious that on the checklist, we say implement.
Mike Veldhuis 13:40
But there are so many good IDs that never were implemented because the company got scared because there was not enough focus because there was not enough ownership. We got that on our cheat checklist right? But actually starting to implement the solution and using it is so powerful to actually do so it's obvious but powerful. And the last thing on our list and I really love this one is celebrate wins. People absolutely share wins with each other you got going your got the Ready, set, go you got your project, you got your building an intelligent business, and celebrate it, celebrate it if it succeeds really important.
Michael Morton 14:33
one more comment for you is the celebrate win makes me think this the most important step of your entire journey is to produce results from your new founded insights you celebrate the win. When you demonstrate you've impacted the business.
Mike Veldhuis 14:48
Thank you for listening. This was episode three really looking forward to episode number four where we go on to propel perfection How can we continuously improve those projects and really start becoming the intelligent business. Thank you for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai