It’s been a long time….but this article caught my eye.  The article, written by Stephen Day for Entrepreneur is:  “Stop Using ‘Digital Transformation’ to Describe Your Business. This Meaningless Buzzword Fails To Spotlight Your Company’s Biggest Asset.”

So one of my big pet peeves is when it’s hard to understand what something means. I am not the most patient person in the world, so if I see something, I want to understand the meaning right away.  So one phrase that I dislike is “digital transformation”. Most times when companies talk about digital, they mean paperless. So instead of filling out forms, you use online tools. But going from paper to online isn’t really the point for me. It’s that the data is now useable.  You can analyze the data.

Which brings me back to good old “source/cause” analytics.  Because labor is cheap, and data analysis still remains woefully boring and mechanical (like the monthly reports that no one reads), no one is really incented to look at data. But think about how rich data really is…especially when it comes to the client experience (another buzzword phrase).

Wouldn’t it be interesting to know that a client called 6 times to get an answer?  And that the client has significant assets, which seem to be getting transferred out in chunks over time?  Wouldn’t it be useful information to know that the number one cause for calls is because something changed and clients weren’t notified?

Digital without metrics is useless. Yes, you might save on paper and postage. But the real benefits come from analyzing the data and see the data as the true report card (another buzzword) of your business.