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How Analytics Can Boost Change Management

Posted: 14 May 2020 07:15 AM PDT

Did you know that most business transformations end in failure? According to McKinsey and Company, 70% of all corporate transformations fail. Even though new tools, processes, and leadership changes can boost business growth on paper, in reality, these success scenarios rarely play out. 

The actual process of rolling out new changes is often a period of severe discomfort. Why does this happen? The main reason for such a dramatic failure rate has to do with people. 

When it comes to creating change several issues negatively impact a new product rollout or a merger. 

  • Employees may be resistant to trying out new tools and processes
  • Leaders fail to convey the benefits and importance of change
  • People may fear that their skills will become redundant
  • There's a deep-seated resistance to learning 

Managing these issues is no easy feat. Successful change management relies on addressing the issues and concerns of your employees before they surge into an insurmountable block.

Although managing people and their related concerns may seem like 'soft' issues requiring personal skills and emotional intelligence, change management can be data-driven and objective.

In this post, we're going to explore how data analytics can play a powerful role in making change successful. 

Data already impacts how we do business. Many businesses rely on website analytics and CRM to power their site experience, sales and SEO. 51% of businesses state that improving their contact data quality is the biggest obstacle to email marketing success. 95% say that accessing current customer data undermines their general marketing efforts.

But these issues are currently being circumvented with the ever-increasing implementation of analytical solutions. When it comes to change management, here's a breakdown of how analytics can help:

  • It can identify likely sources of resistance
  • You get real-time input on employee wellbeing 
  • It's easy to conduct sentiment analysis of internal and external communication
  • Measure training efficiency to find knowledge gaps
  • Predict the adoption of technology in different groups
  • Build dashboards to visually track change management goals 

Now that analytics has entered the foray, change management will become more measurable and predictable. Let's dive deeper to understand the role that data analytics can play in assisting change. 

Get feedback from employees

When making changes to your workflows and tools, the people who feel the impact the most are your internal stakeholders i.e. employees. This is why it is essential to get feedback from them. The great news is that the development of AI and business analytics means that you can get real-time information. 

Usually, you'd create a survey form, send it out, wait for results, send reminders to get it filled, analyze it and then make decisions. This is a slow process and you're losing precious time with which to manage key pain points as they occur. 

With a business intelligence tool like an app for employees to communicate on, you can create real-time feedback mechanisms and get opinions instantly. As a leader, you'll learn what isn't working and what tools and changes you need to add to help people do their jobs well. 

What's important about using analytics to gather feedback is that you can measure the effectiveness of your rollout on specific groups and then build models to predict how other groups or teams will behave. 

Future rollouts can be predicted and managed with greater accuracy leading to high adoption rates and success. Imagine what this means for major overhauls such as mergers and acquisitions.

One of the most significant ways that this type of technology helps is that it creates a dialogue. Leaders can listen to their employees and answer questions. This leads to continued trust in the business and greater cooperation. 

Gauge external stakeholder sentiment

So far, we've looked at how your internal stakeholders aka your employees can be positively impacted by analytics to create conversations. What about external stakeholders?

External stakeholders consist of people like trustees, members of the board  and other players depending on the nature of your business. You may even consider journalists to be important as their reporting can impact how change is received within and outside the organization. 

AI and analytics can be used to power social media listening tools and sentiment analysis. You'll be able to gauge the emotional charge behind tweets, posts and even email exchanges with your company. This will help you monitor problem areas as they arise and step in to mitigate them early on. 

Create change dashboards

Businesses already use attractive visual dashboards to track KPIs for finances, sales and marketing. A Change Management dashboard can similarly serve you by creating an overhead view of whether your goals are being met. 

You'll get graphs, trends and real-time data that will reveal issues early on so that you can manage them. What information can a change dashboard show you? Let's take a look:

Employee and stakeholder sentiment: A dashboard can help you keep track of the positive, negative, or neutral impact that people in your organization experience across projects and timelines. 

Speed: You'll get an overview of how fast a tool or a process is being adopted and will be able to fix bottlenecks faster.

Tool implementation success: Is the new tool fully implemented across different teams? You'll be able to track the progress with which new tools are adopted and whether they are a success. 

Visualize cultural bottlenecks: Some platforms enable you to create historical assessments of reactions to new changes. You'll identify any risk-averse culture or areas where there's resistance to change. This will allow you to put in more effort in places that need the most help.

Readiness for Change: A change dashboard will help you gauge your organization's capability to manage new projects. Readiness for change will indicate if you need to offer more training or communication material to ease the transition.

A change management dashboard will create a visual overview of how your new rollout is doing at your organization. It will help you get information and understand what's happening across different levels and teams that will allow you to intervene promptly.

Recruit change agents

Change in your organization simply isn't possible without the cooperation of your people. It only takes a few unwilling individuals to disrupt your expensive and essential new rollout. 

This is why you need to identify and recruit respected and influential employees within your organization to act as ambassadors for change. You can train them to become change agents or you can hire people from outside to act in a change agent role. 

A change agent can support you with their technical know-how and social skills. They can rally the more passive employees in your organization to get on board with the new changes. They'll intervene in internal political situations and help make the transition easier. 

You need to support your change agents by offering them intensive training. They need formal training via online courses and boot camps. But they'll also need to learn soft skills related to leadership, team building and communication. Most of all, they'll need support and motivation from your senior leadership. 

Track training success

Training and skill development is an important component of change in a business. Analytics can help you track and assess important metrics related to training.

It will help you carry out assessments to understand the knowledge and skill gaps within your organization. You'll also be able to identify necessary skills that will lead to success so that you can set up training modules for them 

This will help you allocate the best resources to the right roles so that they can develop the skills needed to facilitate change. 

You'll boost the rate at which your employees become more competent in new jobs or in using new systems. You'll also improve onboarding and transition times. 

One of the best outcomes is that finding skill gaps and then filling them up by training your people will build trust and loyalty. They could experience changes in your business as a time of growth rather than a threat to their livelihoods. 

Conclusion

When using analytics to drive and measure major changes in your business, you're building valuable information for the future. 

Now that we can measure and track everything, and also process large data sets, we will be able to predict future successes. 

Consider using analytics as a powerful way to create change that not only grows your business but also enhances your employees' experiences.

5 Lead-Nurturing Tips You Need for Success

Posted: 14 May 2020 07:10 AM PDT

Inbound marketing has become one of the most popular ways to turn prospects into customers. Due to this shift in perspective, many business owners are marketers are looking for ways to help potential customers navigate through their sales funnel. 

Lead nurturing is the process of engaging with your visitors by offering them support, information, and content that provides the solution to a problem, or advice to ease pain points. There are plenty of ways you can keep in touch with both the people who've casually spotted one of your ads on social media and long-time fans. 

Let's look at several things you need to keep in mind when you are trying to build rapport with your audience. In addition to lead nurturing tips, we are going to look at several strategies you can implement that will help you increase your conversions and website traffic. 

Focus on awareness 

First, let's talk about spreading brand awareness. It's hard to nurture your leads if people don't know that you exist. There are plenty of smart ways you can get the word of your business out to potential customers without paying for ads. 

Social media is a great starting point when you want to inform consumers of your product. The average user spends 2 hours and 22 minutes across their social profiles every day. In other words, they are receptive to your promotions and open to engagement. Additionally, 50% of users on Facebook say the platform influenced their buying decisions. Past visitors may see retargeting ads, but how do you get the attention of people who have never heard of your brand? 

You can attract leads by holding an online giveaway for your followers. Encourage new people to follow your brand and share your post for even more exposure. Make sure you offer something relevant to your industry, as opposed to an Amazon gift card. Specialized prizes ensure that your target audience signs up for the event. 

Don't forget to spend plenty of time engaging with your potential customers and followers in social media groups that post relevant content. Use these conversations to introduce yourself and build connections with consumers. 

Leverage relevant content

The best way to nurture your customers is through your content. Blog content is beneficial and versatile, making it a go-to choice for many marketers. There are ways you can improve your website design for a customer-friendly experience. It's always a good idea to add a search function to your blog so consumers with specific interests or questions can find relevant content. 

As an added bonus, you can use customer searches to feature other related content and lead magnets. Taking this small step can result in more people subscribing to your email list and staying on your site for a longer time. If people can find what they are looking for, you'll have a much easier time helping them navigate through your sales funnel. 

Once you start generating more email subscribers, you can segment your list and send relevant content to users based on their customer persona. Research shows that segmenting the content you send in emails can improve your open rate by a whopping 14.31%. 

For example, if you have a shop that sells different kinds of clothing, you can create curated lists of content about those specific types of content based on user purchase history. The result is subscribers will see more content that fits their interests, and as a result, they are more likely to click your email and navigate to your website. 

Merge chatbots with live support

Customer support is essential for lead nurturing. People are going to land on your site with questions, and they expect a team to be there for help. You can meet and exceed their expectations by adding chatbots to your existing live support strategy. 

Human employees are great at helping customers with complicated issues that require troubleshooting or corrections. Chatbots can help people that fundamental problems, such as a password change, while actively engaging with new consumers that land on your website. 

You can take it a step further and use your new chatbot to ask customers questions to personalize their experience. There are plenty of new possibilities with AI, and chatbots seem to be the most significant evolution for business owners. 

The best part about AI-powered chat programs is they are available to nurture your leads day or night. They don't need time off, and you save your live support team for more complicated and pressing issues. 

Use personalization

Earlier, we mentioned the benefits of personalized content, but this tip specifically refers to personalizing individual details about your customers. In most cases, you'll find this tip useful for your email marketing campaign. 

There are plenty of exciting ways you can send individualized messages to your email subscribers. You'll want to use details like their name, birthday, and location in your messages. Using an aspect like a recipient's first name can improve your open rate by 26%! 

You could also send out a special deal or content package for users on their birthday. If you're willing to pay attention to seemingly small details like this, consumers will have a much easier time trusting your brand and asking questions as they get closer to becoming a customer. 

Follow up 

Finally, it's crucial that you follow up with website visitors, email subscribers, and followers on social media. All of these people have the potential to become customers, or have already bought something from your online store. 

If you have leads that fall into the former category, following up can help you close the deal. Let's say someone signs up for your email list because they wanted a 20% coupon. They get their discount but forget to place their order. 

Your email reminder with an extra 10% off could be just the thing they need to get them in gear and ready to buy something from your website. 

Retargeting ads are also helpful in this situation. Essentially, these ads, also called retargeting pixels, occur when someone lands on your website but doesn't complete their order. They may begin to see banners that you created on their social media profile. The result is more people will remember their interactions and come back to your site. 

Additionally, you'll see that people will follow you on social media, send you a message, and never engage with your brand again. If you can, respond to their message and get an exciting, professional conversation going. Some people are looking for businesses that are willing to go out of their way to please their customers. 

Conclusion

As you can see, there's a lot of planning that goes into lead nurturing. You have to spend time getting to know your target audience, and then work to actively help each segment across email, social media, and on your website. 

Sending relevant information is helpful, but it's only one piece of the lead nurturing puzzle. It pays to go out of your way to make sure that everyone that interacts with your brand leaves with their questions answered. Users on social media should expect the same attention to care that they will find when they talk to your on-site support. 

The more time you spend working with consumers, the easier time you'll have planning strategies that are designed to nurture leads and turn them into customers. 

 

How Remote Working Is Affecting Business IT Security

Posted: 14 May 2020 06:59 AM PDT

The last time the world had seen a pandemic that caused this much disruption to daily life was in 1918, long before we conceptualized computers in their modern form. Nobody in the world expected a global pandemic to his society like that again. How wrong we were. Statistics from the European Center for Disease Control put the amount of infected in the world at a little over 3 million, with deaths totaling 227,000 all told. To limit the spread of the disease, several governments have enforced shelter-in-place orders as their fallback control measure.

A looming depression

One of the most significant impacts happened when many employees either lost their jobs or faced the option of remaining on no-pay leave. The Washington Post mentions that over 17 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits over the last month. In an economy like the United States, this is a scary prospect. Luckily, many companies that don't require the physical presence of their employees inside their offices have opted for remote working. However, while it is a positive solution that makes the best of a bad situation, it brings with it a new set of challenges for these companies to overcome.

Cybersecurity and work from home

With employees tasked with operating from their own homes, workplaces now have to open up their trusted databases and servers to computers that are not within their "circle of trust." Typically, commercial cybersecurity operates on a "moat-and-castle" analogy. Everything outside the company is considered unwanted, but things inside the wall of security are trusted. This sort of security setup comes with its own problems. Harvard Business Review notes that the most significant threats to cybersecurity happen from within the business itself. Now that companies have to open up their systems to their employees, the whole point of a "circle of trust" might just not exist since there's no way to ensure that those user machines are free of infection before establishing a connection.

The introduction of a zero-trust system

Moat and castle is a dated concept, and can't stand in the current atmosphere that requires a work-from-home perspective. The other paradigm that has surfaced to deal with this problem is the "zero-trust" system. In a zero-trust framework, there's no such thing as a "circle of trust," and cybersecurity departments assume that attacks can happen both internally and externally. To deal with these threats, users only get to use the least amount of resources necessary to perform their functions. Thus, whereas in a moat-and-castle system, all employees would have access to the whole network, in a zero-trust methodology, those employees would only have access to the systems they need to use.

For example, a programmer working on a particular page for the company's website doesn't need to have access to personnel employee records or company payment information. To ensure that this data remains secure, the company may store them on a separate "slice" of the server with further authentication systems attached. In situations like these, multi-factor authentication is one of the best ways to approach different levels of access to company resources.

The term used for keeping different records on different parts of the company's server is known as micro-segmentation. This concept is an important one because it helps manage data breaches, should they occur. You can consider micro-segmentation similarly to bulkheads in a ship. If part of the ship's hull were to become compromised and start flooding below-decks, the crew could seal off the bulkheads between where the breach occurs. This measure keeps the rest of the ships safe from flooding and ensures it can remain afloat.

Similarly, if a malicious user breaches the company's security, they are limited to where the user they are piggybacking on has access. Sensitive data can, therefore, be kept secure. Only high-level security access passwords with multi-level authentication can have access to the company's most sensitive data.

Who is most vulnerable to intrusion?

Even before the COVID-19 crisis, the most at-risk companies were those with less money to spend on cybersecurity. As Verizon noted in 2019, as much as 43% of all data breaches happened in small businesses. These breaches included things like phishing, insider threats, malware, or brute-force attacks on their secure databases. User data collected by small companies are a lot easier for hackers to get access to than those housed by large businesses.

Many large companies only fall prey to malicious users because of their own negligence and carelessness. Most of the recent enterprise-level hacks on large businesses came about because of poor implementation of security on cloud servers. Following this, the next most substantial volume of breaches happened because sensitive information was stored in plain-text format anonymously on the open internet. In both of these cases, the affected companies could avoid the issue by paying more attention to detail. Even so, these breaches were resolved in short order, because large companies have the money to throw behind them. Small businesses don't have the same luxury, and because of that, they need to spend more time in prevention since they can't afford the cure.

With many small businesses, the issue isn't so much about not wanting to spend money on cybersecurity, but rather a limitation of their budgets. Small businesses already operate on slim margins. The increased demand for cybersecurity resources needed for ensuring that all employee computers fall under their "circle of trust" is too much for any small business to bear and remain profitable in the long term. Luckily, there are ways that small businesses can start setting up their zero-trust cybersecurity framework that doesn't cost them much.

Managing the inherent risks associated with remote work

Some published, open-source frameworks for zero-trust systems already exist, such as the one developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The robust framework they provide is highly extensible. Most security teams already have personnel versed in implementing cybersecurity measures, the framework just makes their job easier by giving them a basis for their edits. Skilled security teams can take these existing frameworks and incorporate a business's cybersecurity measures alongside the provisions that the code base supplies. The features such a structure offers include levels of authorization as well as data protection (both in-transit and stored).

Implementing increased security alongside requisite training to ensure that employees are aware of their role as stakeholders can go a long way towards preventing cyberattacks in a work-from-home type arrangement. These measures do require a deep dive into how the company implements its IT architecture. Being aware of the threats to the company's data ensures the cybersecurity team has measures to deal with these problems before they arise. The zero-trust system introduces protections that limit the scope of a breach, but preventing them still relies on educating staff on the way to avoid getting infected while online.

The new normal

Governments around the world have been discussing relieving quarantine orders once the amount of infected has dropped to a more acceptable level. Even so, the way companies do business, especially with their employees, will change thanks to this pandemic. Businesses can no longer justify having their workers show up at offices if they can realistically and efficiently perform their duties at home. The heart of surviving this crisis and ensuring the company's data remains intact with these work-from-home orders starts and ends with the cybersecurity team. The measures they take will reverberate through the company's interaction with its employees for years to come.
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