BITS Pilani

Pilani Campus

Communicating the value

proposition

BITS Pilani Nirankush Dutta

Pilani Campus
Need for Communication Strategy
• Communication can be challenging
• Traits of effective communication
– Generating Commitment to change
– Convincing others of the need for change
– Achieving consensus on how the change can be delivered
• Communication preferences
– Personal
• Analytical perspective
• Process perspective
• Personal perspective
• Strategic perspective
– Environmental

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Successful Communication
• Successful communication of the values include
– Identification of the formal / informal decision making
procedures
– Developing a communication strategy that is holistic in nature
– Mapping and Profiling
– Role of decision makers

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

The Communication Process

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Awareness and Information
Relevancy
• High information relevancy
• Two most important considerations in this context:
 What is being stated is understood and applied to relevant
situations.
 It aligns with personal motivations of relevant people

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Comprehension and Relevancy
• Few people have solid understanding of technicalities of
Business Analytics
• Lack of foundational knowledge cannot always be
compensated with education
• Focus on the reason behind the message
• Focus on the shortest path to create value
• Focus on translating the model into one that is
comprehensible to the other party

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Motivational Understanding
• Many different motivational factors exist
 Respect for the individual making the request
 Political or relational consideration
 Interest in the work and the resultant self – actualization
 Involvement in a broader team
 Philosophical considerations
 Goal setting and self – determination
 Career development

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Organization and Societal Cultural
Consideration
• Culture plays an important role in accepting or resisting a
message
• Most important factors to influence our level of message
acceptance
– Historical Influences: Backgrounds and experiences
– Message Delivery: Proxemic Factors and Time Sense
– Implicit Understanding: High and Low Context

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Historical Influences: Background
and Experiences
• A single, successful project helps the growth of business
analytics in an organization
• An unsuccessful project leads to internal biases when starting
a new project

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Message Delivery: Proxemic
Factors and Time Sense
• Two of the most relevant broader cultural influences:
 nonverbal communication preferences (proxemic factors)
 the way we perceive time (time sense)
• For a team operating across cultural boundaries, maintaining
an open mind and observing these differences is a critical
component of success.
• People perceive time in two ways:
 A continuous stream (polychronicity)
 A discrete measurement (monochronicity)

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Implicit Understanding: High and
Low Context
• High - context cultures characterized by:
 More relationally driven decision making
 Situational and personal knowledge
 A higher level of implicit (or internalized) understanding of
taboos, knowledge, and acceptable behavior
 Greater use of nonverbal and indirect communication
 A need for consensus and a preference for team - based
problem solving

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Implicit Understanding: High and
Low Context
• Low - context cultures characterized by:
 More rule - based and process - driven decision making
 Public and transferable knowledge
 Explicit identification of acceptable behavior and common
activities
 Greater use of written and formal communication
 A belief in personal ownership and independent execution
 A focus on speed and inductive thinking

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Conceptual Relevancy
• It is critical to make information conceptually relevant
• This can be achieved by applying a relevant conceptual
framework
• Four perspectives of a useful model
– Analytical
– Process
– Personal
– Strategic

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

The Path to Persuasion
• It is important to understand the roles people have in decision
making process
• Things to explicitly consider
– How decisions are made
– Who owns and influences the final decision
– How to overcome objections and provide coverage
• Understanding the decision making process
• Tailoring a Communication Strategy

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Understanding Decision Making
Process
• Formal process
• Informal process
• Mapping stakeholders and decision makers
– Decision makers
– Key influencers
– Potential supporters
– Anyone else being impacted by the change

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

Tailoring a Communication
Strategy
• Who needs to be contacted
• Core message for each person
• Best starting point for each person for creating information
relevancy
• Likely motivational factors
• Likely preferred conceptual models
• Desired outcome

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA

BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus