The two teams that play an important in any business and required to work together, but always in a clash in the way they work — Analytics and Sales.
I recently spoke to an Analytics person in the Finance Sector and he looked and spoke frustrated. He said, “I have been chasing 100% accuracy for the purchase department data, but the business keeps changing. The POS system they use to enter the purchase orders is showing different numbers than what we have in Databricks. It’s very frustrating”.
I understand his frustration, but at the same time business needs to evolve and try different methods for growth. Many businesses treat these two units as silos and do not care about the consistent data flow between them. They also tend to ignore the insights from Analytics naming them as inaccurate and unreliable, which will hurt in the long run.
Lets dig into why these two teams clash and how we can fix them.
The Clash
Time
Sales team is always under constant pressure to reach target and expect the analytics team to be proactive in providing the latest data. While Analytics team aim for accuracy in whatever they deliver which takes time.
2. Change in Business Processes
Sales team are among the first persons to know about the process change and adapt quickly. Sadly, Analytics team receive the message much later, at times never, which makes them look rigid for change.
3. Insights Vs Recommendations
Sales team ask for insights to support their decisions and not recommendations based on the data that is already present. An analytics report and results only show what is there in the data which may not satisfy their expectations.
The fix
Involve Analytics earlier when defining the problem, not after the decisions were made.
Analytics team should understand the commercial context and join customer and stakeholder conversations. They should not stop in providing insights, they should recommend what should be done next. And understanding the context helps a lot here.
Prioritization should be done together. If there is any new urgent request, both teams should agree on the task to move down the list.
Share the success among the organization where collaboration improved a decision and made an impact on organization’s growth.
Reinforce the points where improvements can be made.
I would like to conclude by saying that, the bottleneck is not Sales or Technology expertise. It is in finding a way to make the two teams work together.