5 Hurdles to Data Utilization

In the Club industry, there are often hurdles that impede the extent to which data is used in decision making and strategising. These bottlenecks can impact the quality and efficiency of the decision-making process, leading to sub-optimal outcomes. This blog explores 5 hurdles to data utilisation often found at Clubs of all sizes. Identifying that any or all of these hurdles exist within a Club can help begin the process of understanding how to alleviate these roadblocks and enable the Club to take their performance to the next level.

1. Managers are time-poor

Often, we find that managers are time poor. They tend to deal with a multitude of tasks and are inadvertently forced to deprioritise certain activities. This tends to turn their focus to more tactical day-to-day task execution, rather than strike a balance between daily tasks and long-term focused strategic decisions. As a result, managers often tend to deprioritise the use of data in their decision making.

2. Data processing is manual

In many instances data is still handled manually. This means that when there are either no pre-existing or useful reports from systems, or even when data form 2 or more systems is being married to build insights, the people doing so have to rely on manual data processing means including the use of excel. As such, tasks can become repetitive and also lead to (human) errors. Considering the volume of data generated by a modern Club each day, manually processing the data is not scalable nor sustainable.

3. Data is siloed

Clubs collect a significant volume of data across the various systems it runs, from gaming to POS and more. As such, this data is often housed in their respective systems. This means that generally only the mangers who interact with their respective systems see the data collected by that system. For example, only gaming managers would see gaming data. This essentially creates data siloes. The problem with data siloes is that they do not allow for data from different sources to paint a complete picture of a member’s or customer’s interactions with a Club. A simple example of this would be that the gaming manger may not know what other transactions the member had during their gaming visit, like food or bar purchases. This in turn leads to a poor understanding of the needs each member is trying to satisfy. Ultimately siloed data leads to very generic, and one size fits all promotions and marketing communications, which fail to resonate with the member, yields poor engagement and lower conversions.

4. Information overload and Data Fatigue

One of the biggest limiting factors to maximising data utility is information overload. Data collection systems tend to provide several reports which cover a number of areas of concern. While the intention is good, generally this means that the managers viewing the reports are inundated with so much excess information that they are unable achieve their intended goals. This could lead to impediments to the decision-making process and can result in poor or even no decisions. Data fatigue happens when a Club collects information faster than it can process the information – and use it to derive actionable insights and decisions. A few reasons why data fatigues could occur include:

• Volume of data is overwhelming
• Data and reporting is messy
• Data and reporting are flawed and inconsistent

Information overload and data fatigue can lead to the perception that data is a task or burden, rather than an asset that can help drive efficiencies and growth.

5. Perception of Data

The perception of data within an organisation plays an important role in how it is utilised. The tone or buy-in for data utlisation is often set by the leadership team as their own level of commitment and buy-in trickles down the Club structure. As such, 2 broad, yet sometimes interrelated hurdles are:

• Management believes the current way is the best way: There are instances where management teams are reluctant to affect change in their existing processes. This can stem from a number of reasons, including simply not seeing the need for change. With that said, the perception of “the current way is the best way” is often a result of not fully understanding the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the change in question. In its current state, the Club might be performing at a certain level that has come to be the norm and is perceived as good enough. Understanding why data is important and how it can be used to move a Club’s performance from good enough to the next level is important. Management believes the current way is the best way
• Data is treated as a product and not an asset: Another limiting factor to how data is treated comes from the perception that data is a product, or even a by-product of operational activities and it simply reflects performance at a high level. This perception causes data to be treated with lower importance, and results in a missed opportunity for turning the data into an active asset.

Bullseye CX’s Develop a Data Strategy workshop helps Clubs identify which hurdles are impeding their ability to maximise the use of their data. It explores the key causes of poor data adoption and helps remedy these factors via a proactive approach to understanding and managing data.

Learn how Bullseye CX is helping Clubs overcome their hurdles to maximising data utility. Read our Case Study on ‘Develop a Data Strategy’ here.