The Data Lab’s TORCH advisors reflect on the lessons learned from 2 years of supporting some of Scotland’s most ambitious organisations
Since its launch in March 2020, our TORCH team has helped over 30 businesses from a wide variety of sectors including (but in no means limited to) Travel & Hospitality, Comms & PR, Youth Charity, Oil & Gas, and Education Tech. Business benefitting from our impartial advice and supplier introductions range from 1-person start-ups to much larger (and often older) organisations.
Available to SMEs and start-ups in the private sector across Scotland, we’ve had the pleasure of engaging businesses from many different sectors, from a wide range of locations throughout Scotland. For example, we provided LGBTYS with an actionable report that helped move their project forward with stakeholders.
We also built a roadmap that enabled Hotelfone to deploy new systems and radically transform productivity.
How it works
The support we provide often starts with short discovery sessions, solution identification, and advice for the business senior team/ founders. Our final contribution is to make introductions to a relevant set of potential partners from our Supplier Network, though we always like to hear how the story unfolds.
Our (technology) neutral stance is a key part of our approach. We’re here to support you as an SME manager or start-up founder.
Our advisory service was built on the observation that a troubling number of projects were failing to deliver what businesses had set out to achieve. Investing effort into initial stages pays off and our case studies highlight the work we’ve done to reduce failure rates, establish strong foundations, and ensure successful implementation.
Across the different sectors we have worked with, we are seeing:
- Increasing recognition of the importance of data in their business
- Start-ups beginning their technical journeys with the assumption that they will build their core capabilities in the Cloud. These start-ups often differ significantly from longer-established businesses with pre-existing solutions in-place
- Intellectual property (and protection/development thereof) issues – especially when engaging in software/ data-set development. It is important to be very clear on who owns what before things are built
We’ve distilled our high level learnings from our work to date and grouped them by the key areas that we typically support:
Many SMEs recognise the value of data
As a general rule, senior people in business have now had enough exposure to ‘data’ to recognise its value, and also acknowledge that their data situation is not all they’d wish it to be. Often, having the time to make changes while juggling all the other day-to-day business priorities is their main barrier. The term “Data Literacy” is used more often now and can offer a good theme (alongside Data Governance) to build into your business approach.
Access to data skills is evolving
Models for accessing data skills are constantly evolving. There are a wide range of skilled data and technology partners in Scotland, and a thriving market of freelancers able to join or supplement SME teams.
Training options are numerous
There are also many options for developing skills and knowledge options for within an organisation, as well as support and funding provided by numerous agencies.
Data skills are in demand
Data skills are in high demand. For example, Data Engineering (i.e. the pulling together of data sources and flows into useful data pipelines) is a specialism where demand exceeds supply.
Businesses benefit from internships
A significant number of organisations have now benefited from taking on an MSc student via The Data Lab Master’s Programme. This is normally a 3-month engagement with the student working on a specific project brief. The Data Lab team can help you shape a project brief if required.
Partnerships can help SMEs thrive
Working alongside an experienced practitioner can bring the expertise and confidence to take your Data Journey forward. Making suitable introductions is part of the TORCH service.
SMEs have large volumes of data
Most SMEs have lots of data, but the documentation around what they have is typically limited, or stored in the heads of key people. In many projects, we have recommended building a view that shows non-technical users the types of data available – often with a traffic light approach to illustrate its current condition. Our free Master Your Data Guide shows how you could do this for your business.
Data privacy laws are followed
Most businesses appear to now be at (or above) base level compliance with privacy regulations and good practices (GDPR, cookie notices, and similar). In contrast, many small organisations still have little or no management/governance in place for their wider data resource. It becomes increasingly important to adopt this as an organisation grows or adapts, people move on, and new types of information are added to the mix.
Data quality is an issue
All that said, data quality remains a significant challenge to most businesses in at least some key processes. Poor quality data cannot be exploited or used to underpin automation. The only solution is to seek out the root cause of the issue, allocating a business owner, and remediate for the future.
Machine Learning and AI are new to most SMEs
Only a small number of SMEs have made significant moves into machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) as of yet; most have heard of the concepts but are not clear on relevance or applicability to their business. Few have data science teams or programmes at present.
Many start-ups include Machine Learning and AI in ALL their thinking
Conversely, many of our start-up clients are actively engaged in considering how machine learning, artificial intelligence and other data science techniques can support or turbo-charge their propositions.
Spreadsheets are relied upon
Spreadsheets are still widely deployed, often as mission-critical tools, within a business. Organisations tend to be aware of the issues that spreadsheets can cause, but only a relatively small proportion have plans in place to migrate to more secure and productivity-enhancing options.
Cloud service subscriptions can work for small businesses
Rather than investing in installed business software on their own equipment, using external providers should now be the default position for small businesses and start-ups. Before planning to build ANYTHING, it is time well spent to check the market for something close to what is needed and review which is available on a subscription basis.
Partnerships are a big feature of this landscape – for example many applications include pre-built Reporting or Finance integration with market-leaders, so the work of integration is already done and supported. There are already a good number of quality providers in place, each with fast developing propositions, competitive pricing, and lots of support to get you up and running quickly. Take a look at these technology selection portals for ideas – G2, Capterra, and GetApp.
Businesses use established technology providers
Many businesses are choosing to move forward with technologies they already have or are familiar with. For example, organisations with existing Microsoft365 implementations will tend towards using other Microsoft Azure services; those using Google Docs will opt for further Google based components. This does not detract from the ‘mix and match/ best of breed’ approach. It is fair to say that there is now a large choice when it comes to cloud-based business services. The main ones are all now mature, well-evolved products with lots of connectivity to other common business systems and services.
Researching technology choices pays off
Conversely, for businesses that have not made their early technology and cloud choices, investing time to research this first step is definitely worth it. There are plenty of excellent resources to assist your choice and several TORCH projects have helped our clients develop the confidence to get real value from conversations with vendors they are considering.
Mapping optimises business processes
Looking at how data moves around your business every day can offer real insights into how you can improve and innovate. This could be from a customer journey viewpoint, or an operational process that involves other parties, such as suppliers or regulators. If your plan is to take advantage of cloud-based services, this is the perfect time to look at proven and more efficient ways of working (that are already be embedded in the service design, or will become much easier to implement with the flexibility offered).
Delivery methods are improving
Most organisations are embracing the modern approach known as AGILE, in order to deliver rapid prototyping of user-led designs for new services they want to offer. This sits well with the approaches of suppliers and the skills market. Note, however, that this does not remove the need for skilled project management and stakeholder engagement (with oversight from people in the heart of the organisation who really understand its needs, culture, challenges and long-term direction).
The pandemic has accelerated digital processes
The Covid 19 pandemic has significantly accelerated digital/remote processes and data capture mechanisms such as QR codes and IoT sensors. People have become more accustomed to seeing these applied to everyday activities, and also more receptive to how they might improve business performance. Moving forward, it is important to embed these new capabilities further into Business-as-Usual in order to reap the ongoing benefits they offer.
See these examples of how organisations have utilised QR codes and IoT sensors.
SMEs know about funding opportunities
Many organisations considering new investments in data and related capabilities have explored potential grant funding – often through Innovate UK/UK Smart/Scotland Smart or Scottish Edge. However, these various grant funding routes are highly competitive and can be time consuming (and not always successful). That said, the rigour and levels of detail required for these submissions often prove reusable in other contexts – e.g. in developing a business plan.
The Data Lab’s funding team can review and assist in advance of your submission.
Some opportunities have limitations
It’s worth noting that some funding options have limitations, matched funding requirements, and other nuances. As before, The Data Lab funding team can help navigate those choices for data related proposals.
Cloud services are affordable
Cloud services make the adoption costs of developing data related capabilities lower than ever before, especially with most providers offering significant start-up and scale-up credit programmes to get the job underway.
Cloud services offer other support
The main Cloud service providers also offer architecture support, i.e. a good technical design, security testing, and cost optimisation to get you started.
Conclusion
If any of this resonates with your own circumstances, or you would like to discuss how it might apply to your unique challenges, we want to hear from you. Our TORCH service has made a lot of great progress, but there is so much more that can be done to support organisations with their data ambitions and we’d love to help them advance.
Please get in touch at torch@thedatalab.com. Our group of experts also run online “coffee” chats, where we are happy to discuss any specific data related query that you have. Don’t feel constrained to our list above – if it relates to data then we are always enthusiastic!
