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February 9th, 2023
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Barriers to implementation: cultural or technical?
“What are the biggest obstacles to implementing an Information Management strategy within your organisation, and have they changed over the past year?”
This question was asked during our 2016 State of Data survey, when comparing the responses from 2015 to 2016 we saw a shift in problems and perceptions however the same theme occurs: the roadblocks are NOT technical but cultural.
Lack of buy-in from business
Lack of buy-inThe 2016 survey showed a significant drop in respondents stating ‘lack of buy in from c-suite and leadership’ as a barrier to implementation , however we also saw a rise in respondents answering their biggest problem was ‘lack of buy-in from business’. While the perception may have changed we think this may be down to a case of “out of the frying pan and into the fire”, in either case this still comes down to a cultural understanding, not technical.
Getting stakeholders and business units on board with projects can be difficult particularly when it is a topic they don’t necessarily understand. Many professionals, whether contract or permanent, struggle to on-board stakeholders. When talking to our candidates one recently said his biggest challenge “was getting the time with the stakeholders to explain how data can benefit the company and how in the long run this turns into better customer interaction and profit”. Ultimately gaining understanding and buy-in comes down to gaining trust and communication.
Lack of skills and resource
Skills gapWe’ve written plenty of times around skills gaps in the UK workforce, especially with data literate workers, and this survey helped to reinforce the idea of a UK wide data skills gap. The survey also sighted a slight increase in a lack of resources as being a barrier, which once again underlines the importance of recruiting and retaining the right talent.
As more business and industries are seeing, and starting to understand the need for data the demand for skills workers is on the rise. Throughout the survey there is an underlying theme of a data skills gap, 83% of those who had not improved their use of data in 2016 stated this was down to a lack of skills.
What are the biggest roadblocks to implementing an Information Management strategy in your business?
