Despite billions spent on modern data platforms, most organizations still fail to generate consistent, actionable insights. The reason? It’s not the tools, it’s how we treat data as an afterthought instead of managing it as a core business asset.
Harrison Lewis brings a unique perspective to this problem, having spent years in business operations before transitioning to IT. His dual experience reveals why so many data initiatives fail and what leaders can do differently.
Treating Data Like a Real Asset
Harrison didn’t start his career in technology, which makes his perspective on data management particularly valuable. “What’s unique about me is that people assume my origins are in IT, and that’s actually not the case at all. My origins are in the business,” he explains. After running various parts of retail and other business operations, his transition into IT over 20 years ago shaped how he approaches data challenges. This business background revealed a persistent problem. “I’ve seen from the business perspective how organizations have struggled with data,” Harrison notes. “From an IT standpoint, IT typically was more hands off or would say this is the business’s responsibility. We’ll provide the tools, but not necessarily the data.” The result? Businesses get stuck managing something they’re not equipped to handle properly.
Uncovering Why Data Efforts Fail
Organizations love to chase what Harrison calls “the shiny object” – expensive analytics tools and platforms that promise instant insights. But they’re missing something fundamental. “I think many organizations fail to acknowledge it as an asset. It’s a thing that we’ll acquire and we’ll figure out maybe one day what we’re going to do with it,” he says. This casual approach creates bigger problems down the line. Harrison has watched companies make a critical mistake with their data handling: “We take the richness of that granular data and then roll it up, and then we throw away the granular data.” Once you roll up data, you’ve essentially decided what you want to see beforehand. “You lose the ability to be able to gain insight around those things that you don’t know,” Harrison explains. He’s seen organizations with over 20,000 different reports, yet when you examine which ones people actually use, “you’ve got people going off in different directions, measuring themselves on different things.” Everyone’s working toward supposedly the same organizational strategy, but nobody’s aligned.
Three Ways to Fix Your Data Strategy
Harrison outlines practical approaches that leaders can implement to transform their data management:
- Treat Data Like Any Other Asset: “Once you do that, then it’s going to influence your behavior,” Harrison says. “All the things you would do with an asset apply to data. You’re going to protect it, secure it, ensure the quality of it, and be good stewards of it.” This isn’t complicated – it’s basic asset management applied to information.
- Stop Getting Stuck on Analytics: Harrison draws a clear line between analytics and insights. “The insights are where it matters. That’s where the business impact is. The idea of doing analytics is a means to get insights, but so often people end up getting stuck at the analytics and never get to the insights.” The difference matters because insights drive action while analytics just produce numbers.
- Connect Your Metrics: “You need a very finite set of KPIs and then you have this cascading throughout the organization,” Harrison explains. His rule is simple: “No one within an organization should be excluded from having a KPI and the linkage in terms of the work that they do and how it relates to the overall business strategy.”
Harrison sees artificial intelligence changing everything, but only for companies that get their foundation right first. “AI is going to make a big difference for organizations that are truly ready. There are not a lot of organizations that are ready,” he warns. Without proper data architecture and understanding, AI initiatives will fail just like previous technology investments. The bigger shift involves moving past traditional reporting entirely. “I don’t think in the future we’ll be thinking about wanting a report,” Harrison predicts. “It is, I want insights. As a result, here’s what I’m going to do, here are the actions I’m taking.” Future systems will embed insights directly into business processes rather than generating separate reports that may or may not lead to action. Getting there requires treating data as what it actually is – a valuable business asset that needs proper management, not an IT problem to solve later.
Harrison now helps companies achieve this through the DAAEG™ framework—a proven approach for defining, assessing, and governing data in a way that drives real business outcomes.
Follow Harrison Lewis on LinkedIn to explore more actionable insights on turning data into business value.
