Business is in a bit of a state. Simon Watson, partner at BDO warned: “Although we hope this recession may be over, the consequences still remain. We are going through a period of profound societal and technological change, which will mean that some business models will wither away and die.” Change must occur to thrive and grow.
I propose, in true Ali G fashion, that what this country needs indahouse to strengthen the economy is indapreneurs.
What on earth is an indapreneur I hear you ask? Much like an entrepreneur, an indapreneur is an individual with great business and entrepreneurial nouse, but who works within an organisation as opposed to for themselves. These indapreneurs would have a primary focus on data, to set key performance indicators for their organisation.
But why do we need them? In the current environment it’s more important than ever that any investment’s ROI is clear, so it comes as some surprise to learn that businesses aren’t investing more to educate their employees about the power of data.
As part of his ‘President’s Prize’ award-winning IPA Excellence Diploma paper, Matt Sadler surveyed 122 people across creative, media, direct, digital and PR agencies. Respondents agreed that reliance on data was increasing (rating it an average 4.1 out of 5), yet employers weren’t seen to be committed to training staff to use it effectively (with employer commitment rated an average of 2.5 out of 5).
The challenge of indapreneurs would be to demonstrate the importance of data, and banish the prevailing perception that data is “boring”, “cold” and “limiting to creativity”.
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Data
