Managers waste their time on administrative tasks

We know more than half of all managers spend over three hours per day on reporting or administration – tasks that don’t create value, but only serve unnecessary managerial needs. This only results in a waste of time, effort, and energy for everyone involved. We believe managers should spend their time on creating value instead. After identifying the reporting burden ravaging almost all companies, we have developed Goal-Driven Insights, an efficient and proven method to structure information management.

One of the reasons for the rise in administrative pressure is often found in the ever-increasing amount of available data. The idea that there is value in data has been adopted by many leaders, companies, and organizations. Enlightened with this idea, many organizations have frantically started collecting data and information. “Everyone should report, all developments should be logged, and everything can be stored.” seems to be the mantra. Data collection, however, is only a starting point to unlocking the value of data. Collecting data without a clear goal doesn’t add value to any organization, it only results in data hoarding and information gluttony.

“Becoming a data-driven company needs to start with the goal (the ‘why’) of data and information.”

Data collecting and information sharing without a goal leads to inefficiency and waste

While both data collecting and information sharing can create value in theory, these activities lead to inefficiency and waste when they are not managed effectively. When collected data serves no clear purpose and comes in high volumes, it leads to disagreement and inefficient processes.

At Capgemini Invent we interact with numerous organizations that have the ambition to become data-driven. Senior, middle, and lower management have seen the value of data-driven decision making and the importance of data to support this process. They can’t wait to launch their own digital initiatives and rush the organization, their department, or their team into the collection of data to support these ideas. This is where the problem arises. Managers get overloaded with data collected by their team members. However, the value of data is not its collection but in the analysis.  Oddly enough, the first reaction of most managers is often to simply collect more data instead of transforming the available data into insights. The data hoarding this creates leads to management spending almost 40% of their time on administrative tasks around data without creating value.

Data collecting and information sharing needs a clear goal to start value creation

So how can we prevent situations like these? How can we achieve our data-driven ambitions, without confusion, data hoarding, and information gluttony? Becoming a data-driven company starts with the goal (the “why”) of collecting data and information. Without a clearly defined goal, organizations risk losing value due to irrelevant data and information handling. This is where Goal-Driven Insights comes in.

By starting to determine which insights bring value to your company you can structure your data collection efforts optimally. Thus, exposing inefficient and redundant processes to be either streamlined or eliminated. Our approach thereby reduces wasted time while at same time increases getting meaningful insights to enhance your business value.

Goal-Driven Insights

Our approach consists of four steps to guide organizations towards Goal-Driven Insights:

1. Identify, describe, and understand your overarching goal
2. Select variables that measure the progress towards your goal
3. Create the process and structure to get the data you need
4. Deliver the insights in a clear and concise manner.

Goal-Driven Insights is one of the propositions of the Value Hacking team of Capgemini Invent. Value Hacking focuses on maximizing value creation through data and intelligence. Go to the Capgemini Insight Driven Enterprise page (EN or NL), if you want to learn more about our propositions and what we can do for you.

For more information connect with Raphael Spaans.

Raphael Spaans

Co-founded my own AI Startup specialized in legal tech. Did this for two years. Now, I’m in the Artificial Intelligence & Automation Strategy team of Capgemini. We are developing a new proposition to enable companies to become data-driven and more efficient in the process. This proposition is named Goal Driven Insights and is the topic of my expertise. I would like to use this application to share our expertise with the world.