Overcoming Resistance To Data-centric Strategy

Solution providers working in big data may be noticing some reluctance on the part of their clients to truly embrace all that big data can bring them.

Not only that, getting those customers to come around to big data could be an uphill battle, and at what point is it no longer worth your time?

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Thomas C. Redman has some ideas for how to overcome the resistance to adopting a data-centric business strategy. A 30-year veteran of the data revolution, Redman says he is still surprised at how much resistance folks who advocate a data quality efforts get.

"Those advancing a data agenda — I call them “data revolutionaries” — need to realize just how disruptive they are to most people," Redman writes. "Too many data revolutionaries focus only on the potential benefits: the money to be saved, the better decisions that will result, the new markets to conquer. They’re seemingly blind to the changes people and organizations must make to realize those benefits."

"Everything is disrupted," Redman says, and it's no surprise that people are uncomfortable with a strategy upheaval that demands they learn new skills and build new relationships.

Still, it can be done, and Redman's got a list of the four main types of resistance "data revolutionaries" face and how to confront it. Click to check it out.