How to communicate with data

Data is becoming an increasingly important tool for procurement and supply professionals to communicate with and influence. But you must be able to cut through with a clear message to be effective – here’s how.

Procurement and supply chain systems, platforms and processes are generating more data than ever before. This is unsurprising, as with good, clean data comes greater visibility for more informed decision making and better planning.

But data alone isn’t enough to persuade your boss, get buy-in from C-suite executives or to communicate with stakeholders effectively. To truly influence, procurement professionals must know how to share data, and tailor it to the intended audience, as well as tell a story with it. By presenting data in a meaningful way, you can ensure it’ll add value and help to develop relationships for greater buy-in.

For Alice Kan, life sciences director at Kan Do Ventures and keynote speaker at the CIPS Procurement & Supply Futures Conference 2024, the requirement to cut through with data is critical. It was a vital part of her work when leading the development of the manufacturing process of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, and remains a continued focus for her today tackling Ebola outbreaks in Africa.

Based on formal training and these experiences, Alice shares her lessons for communicating with data.

Match your data to your stakeholders

Knowing your stakeholders, including their perspectives and the data they need is vital for understanding how and what to communicate with them. Most importantly, you need to understand why they need it, says Alice.

“If you understand their ‘why’, then you can tailor the data, the format and the frequency to meet their needs. This can take time to work out, but if you get the data requirements right at the start, it makes the rest of the project much easier in the long term,” explains Alice.

You must then think about how to reduce the amount of data you share. Less is more, in other words.

“Data overwhelm is a very real problem, given the volume we generate from every digital interaction,” continues Alice. “Presenting it in a meaningful way that is visually accessible, with a short narrative, enables it to stand alone and add real value.”

During the pandemic, Alice was required to share weekly updates to stakeholders including the UK Government, AstraZeneca and the supply chain. She explains how the team first identified the key questions that everyone needed answering, which fed into an overview of progress useful to different audiences. This included likely schedules versus the agreed plans; what support was required; and what the biggest risks were.

“This information – summarised on a single slide – was shared in a variety of meetings with different stakeholders. This enabled them to fully understand the risks that were pertinent to them, and where any specific support was needed.

“If further information was required for any reason, we would then share the next level of detail to provide further context,” Alice adds.

Work off a single source of data – inconsistencies are your enemy

As different systems and layers of data-generating procurement tech builds up, this can create new challenges for procurement and supply professionals. Having inconsistent and competing data sets is the enemy of communication, Alice explains.

“Having a single source of data is absolutely critical. If data is consistent then you can focus on what it’s telling you, but if there are inconsistencies, the focus becomes the differences in the data sets.”

Alice acknowledges this isn’t always easy – even single sources of data can quickly become inconsistent if they’re shared at different times, by different people, in different formats.

“You need to set rules of engagement early to ensure a single source of truth is maintained. The process for the management of the data requires careful planning to create clarity and clear responsibilities.”

To achieve this, Alice suggests some key questions that need answering:

• Who owns what data?
• Who has access to what data? Should it be view or edit access?
• When is the data updated and by whom, on which system?
• When will the data for onward communication be collated (e.g. last day of the month)?
• What format will the data be shared in?

Overcoming ‘data paralysis’ – remind yourself of the purpose

As the digitalisation of procurement evolves, there is only more data being generated. This can become overwhelming and quickly lead to ‘data paralysis’, creating a culture of indecision and inaction.

Even if the procurement function can make sense of it, you need to ensure this doesn’t happen when you’re communicating the data to others, says Alice.

“Sharing data purely because it is available, rather than it actively contributing to decision making, should be avoided at all costs. Likewise, be careful on how often you are collecting data points – this can result in an inability to see any progress.”

Instead, Alice encourages procurement and supply professionals to keep coming back to the purpose of the project and align this with the data to communicate. “Ask yourself whether the data you are using will clearly demonstrate progress towards the objective. If not, change the data you are using.”

Cutting through to decision makers

Alice’s final advice for ensuring your data cuts through to senior executives or stakeholders is twofold.

“Having been trained on Lean Six Sigma management principles, I remember being told: ‘Sun headlines and Financial Times detail’. Broadly, this means you need a headline as succinct as you would get in a tabloid paper, but you need to be able back it up with something you would find in a broadsheet.

“Also, whenever you are presenting information, ask yourself – so what? To use an example from the pandemic, if I’m sharing that we have had a vaccine yield of 103% – so what? It means that the onward supply chain needs to be aware so that they can increase the number of vaccinators and patients so that none is wasted. This will help you to self evaluate whether that data really needs to be shared or not.”

You can watch Alice Kan’s keynote, sharing her story of the power of purpose over cost to drive results at CIPS Procurement & Supply Futures on-demand via CIPS Download.