Adjustment solutions

Subsequently, specific challenges and the advances to minimize them are reviewed. Data Refinery’s effect on them are observed and moreover, the adjustments that have transpired within Aller Media in different functions are presented.

Attitudes toward data

Aller Media believes that visualization helps with the challenge of combining rationality and intuition, while leaving assumptions out of decision-making.

Visualization provides more understanding of the insights from data and thus makes it easier to trust. In addition, creating their own data analytics platform according to current safety regulations is key to building trust – to both Aller Media and its clients.

Establishing Data Refinery sends a message to all the stakeholders that data is the company’s future. Another factor that Aller Media has done to improve attitudes is including different members of their teams to big data decision-making and

presenting them the trail from the data to results. The leaders and decision makers who have used big data in decision-making believe that courage is one of the key aspects in a pioneering data organization and they encourage to experiment and try with data, as it is easy to follow the results and make corrections. One of the best ways to make attitudes positive is the ability to demonstrate good results with the data.

An interesting example of the process of digitalization and the movement toward big data decision-making happened within Aller Media’s content team. They surveyed a few of their print brands’ digital performance for a period of time. The team constantly aimed to develop the brands to be more suitable for the digital environment, but the improvements did not succeed well enough according to the analytics. As a result, the team, its leader, brand managers and content director evaluated their options and decided to reduce the amount of digital content from the specific brands and used the space for content that really was in the interest of their target group, found within the data. Without the data, they would not have been able to detect the same insights and go through the process of abandoning the brand content they had been working for a long time and instead focusing on verifiable fruitful content.

Developing talents

Aller Media has hired more analysts, but there have not been substantial changes in team members within the traditional business units (i.e. marketing, content, business development). The ones that have been responsible for making decisions have expanded their responsibilities by including big data into their decision-making.

With that, some decision makers who have not been familiar with analyzing data and using it excessively have had to learn new skills and knowledge. On the downside, there have been inefficient processes due to lack of necessary skills (i.e.

analyzing large data sets) and unequal progress between units. To help with the challenges, the required data analyst’s skills have been concentrated to Data Refinery, where their visualization efforts aim to prevent efficiency deficits in the decision makers work, making it easier and faster to analyze data and helping to communicate the insights from data throughout the organization in a form that

everyone can understand easily, lessening the differences in knowledge and progress between units. Cooperation between different teams and Data refinery is highlighted to find the best solutions for the whole organization and develop the right aptitudes to both data experts and business experts.

Decision rights

Decision rights within teams have not seen changes in Aller Media, but with growing data use the role of analysts in the decision-making process has risen. To ease the co-operation between different experts, Data Refinery is again in the center of the challenge. By providing a data dashboard to the business units, Data Refinery hands the needed data to the decision makers in a place where it is easy for them to access it on their own. Also, Aller Media’s research center helps with the necessary information. The dashboard is being developed to break down bottlenecks of the big data decision-making process, which are often encountered in the transition from data to useful information and in the resources that transition requires. At this point, data has its own hierarchy within the organization, coming from Data Refinery and then following the decision rights hierarchy that units have.

However, many of the interviewees anticipated a more comprehensive approach in the future, as is discussed next.

Efforts toward comprehensiveness

Data is a clear part of Aller Media’s strategy and a comprehensive integration is of the essence. Numerous projects currently proceeding in Aller Media are focused somehow on utilizing data. There is a strong movement toward developing business entirely with big data. During the last years, Aller Media has aimed to find ways to include data also to functions previously not largely reliant on data, such as the newsletter segmenting example stated earlier. The more data that is seen in every function, the easier it is for employees to understand and clearer to use, as processes and protocols are defined. This requires broadness between different units and a wide knowledge sharing within the organization. Aller Media does not exclude sharing knowledge outside their own organization, as they have seen that

pooling data sources with client’s and other actors’ data brings Aller Media their competitive advantage when offering data-based digital solutions.

Data refinery drives this change and works to unify protocols and the ways of using data in the most effective way. One example of developing businesses completely with data derived from Data Refinery is Aller Media’s Idealista web portal. It combines different forms of digital media content together and shows the visitor its content based on the information acquired from data. It personifies the outlook of the portal and the content shown in it based on the individual visitors’ preferences, modifying the page as needed. It is purely data-driven. In addition to the content shown to each visitor, the content that has been chosen to be created for it is based on the insights big data gives about consumer preferences.

Data Refinery appears to be the driving force for Aller Media’s big data initiatives and it promotes data-driven decision-making in a variety of ways, affecting many stakeholders and activities. The core of Aller Media is comprehensiveness and incorporating data to every aspect of their business. They have seen varying changes and challenges, some which have been tackled and some that are still ahead, but they have taken clear and bold steps to be in charge of their data activities.