Why CTOs and CIOs Should Invest to Unifying Cross-Funtional Data
I’m Nick Mathers, CEO of Nucla. With over 12 years of experience working with major enterprises, I’ve helped structure and run programs and teams that future-proof businesses and drive growth aka Corporate Innovation. Over the last 15 years, 52% of the Fortune 5000 have disappeared. To avoid being part of this statistic, your company must continuously engage with external partners to innovate, adapt, outperform competitors, and drive growth. This objective is at the forefront of every C-suite’s agenda, prompting investments in external engagement and the expansion of teams and processes to stay ahead.
Enterprises are expanding functions such as R&D, accelerators, scouting, partnerships, ventures, and M&A. These individual teams contribute significantly, and each has continued to test and learn to become more effective at their remit.
- Accelerator Teams excel in early-stage engagement and identifying future leaders.
- Venture Teams strategically invest in companies to mitigate risk and diversify.
- Partnership Teams drive efficiency through new processes and valuable collaborations.
- Strategy Teams align organizational goals with market opportunities.
- Innovation Teams push boundaries to keep the company at the industry forefront.
- R&D Teams stay abreast of cutting-edge advancements and integrate significant leaps forward.
After more than a decade in corporate innovation, I’ve identified a recurring issue that led to the creation of Nucla. Despite the effectiveness of these teams, their disjointed efforts and lack of connectivity result in inefficiencies and duplications. Each team uses its own tools and runs its own pipeline, leading to fragmented operations. This disjointed effort means the C-suite has no effective way to measure or understand the cumulative impact of these activities. Specifically everyone encounters:
- Redundant Research on Companies: Teams often conduct repetitive research on companies to solve specific needs, starting from scratch instead of building on existing knowledge. This results in wasted time and effort.
- Duplicated Outreach Efforts: Different teams frequently initiate contact with the same companies without realizing that previous discussions have already taken place. This redundancy is both time-consuming and counterproductive.
- Lack of Transparency Between Teams: Numerous internal emails and meetings are necessary to gather viewpoints or relationship context on a company of interest. The absence of a systematic way to access this information hampers efficiency and slows down decision-making processes.
- Inadequate Access to Internal Systems:Employees struggle to access necessary internal systems to determine if the company is already engaged with a potential supplier, necessitating finding and contacting a gatekeeper, which further delays progress.
As we mentioned before, one major corporation that we work closely with, estimates that the average R&D or Innovation Scout wastes 2-4 hours per week on these tasks. For 100 employees making an average of $150k per year, that is over $1M of spend annually that is wasted and should be spent on strategic initiatives and driving growth.
We are seeing that this waste and inefficient is being assigned to the CTOs and CIOs to fix. They are taken with centralizing data to allows teams to build on existing work, saving time and fostering collaboration and innovation. Plus, centralizing engagement activities for comprehensive oversight to get complete visibility into all cross-funtional engagement efforts and enabling accurate measurement of investment effectiveness and ROI.
Enter the new buzz word “Data Fabric”. The concept of data fabric is revolutionizing how enterprises manage and utilize data. It ensures that data is readily available and can be integrated across different systems and locations, providing a unified view of all data assets. Key benefits of a data fabric approach include:
- Enhanced Data Integration: Seamless integration of various data sources, reducing silos and ensuring all relevant data is accessible.
- Improved Data Management: Efficient management of data, ensuring consistency and quality across all data sets.
- Increased Agility and Innovation: Quick access to and utilization of data, driving innovation and enabling agile responses to market changes.
- Comprehensive Data Governance: Consistent application of data governance policies across all data assets, enhancing compliance and security.
In the modern origination, you have to address this growing inefficiencies of siloed data.
How Nucla Addresses These Needs
Nucla leverages the power of data fabric to manage the massive amount of B2B relationship data generated by these new functions. Our platform integrates existing datasets and gathers insights from cross-functional teams, centralizing and organizing this information into a single, searchable database. Key benefits of Nucla’s platform include:
- Streamlined Data Access: Quick and easy access to all relevant data, reducing redundant research and enabling more informed decision-making.
- Unified Communication: Elimination of countless internal emails and meetings by providing a centralized source of information.
- Comprehensive Engagement Overview: A holistic view of all cross-functional activities, allowing better tracking and measurement of engagement efforts and outcomes.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Foster collaboration between teams by ensuring everyone has access to the same information and can build on each other’s work.
Nucla can help your organization achieve these efficiencies and unlock new insights for your teams and the C-suite. If you are a CTO or CIO looking to drive operational efficiency and gain a comprehensive view of your enterprise’s engagement activities, contact us at Nucla. Let’s transform the way your enterprise manages B2B relationship data.
