The Question-First Approach to Data Integration That Multiplied Company Value by 20x

Define Strategic Vision Independent of Current Capabilities

Before touching any technology, executive teams must define what the company should become as a unified entity.

"We asked ourselves ‘what is important?’ as a whole,” says Jeff.  “We needed to figure out as a company, not as an individual business unit, what we did for a living, what kind of products we wanted to sell, what kind of customers we were serving, and what problems were we solving for those customers.”

This involves identifying:

• Target customer segments for the unified business
• Desired product offerings that utilize newly combined capabilities
• Competitive positioning as an integrated entity
• Strategic problems only the combined business can solve

The key is defining these questions without considering current data limitations or technical constraints that might hold back bigger picture thinking.

Challenge Each Business Unit with New Strategic Questions

Using the strategic vision as a guide, create specific information requirements that each unit must satisfy using their existing systems.

“We asked our brand new, net new questions of these individual companies,” says Jeff. 

Each business unit receives identical strategic questions but must find unique ways to answer them using their current data and systems. 

This reveals which information exists but remains trapped in silos, while identifying what new insights the unified business requires.

The goal is to ensure each unit can contribute to company-wide strategic answers instead of the focus being on standardizing how they collect or store data.

Allow Organic System Integration Based on Business Needs

Rather than forcing system replacement, build connective infrastructure that enables each unit to contribute to company-wide capabilities while preserving their operational systems. Jeff explains:

"We actually just took the existing systems they were using, we didn't beat these guys up. But we just used that data in a way, and created the APIs and all the tools to answer these really cool questions."

Focus on creating APIs and integration tools that:

• Preserve existing operational systems that work well
• Enable cross-unit data sharing for strategic questions
• Allow each unit to maintain their operational excellence
• Create the technical foundation for new business capabilities

Launch Integrated Business Capabilities

Use newly integrated data systems to enable capabilities that no individual unit could deliver alone, targeting higher-value market segments.

The Scandinavian company leveraged their integrated capabilities to pivot their business model. "We ended up morphing the business," explains Jeff. "We started focusing on specialty shipping, things like pharmaceuticals that needed to remain refrigerated and specific scientific equipment." 

This strategic shift enabled them to win specialized contracts that required seamless service integration across their previously siloed divisions. They were able to target high-value segments like pharmaceuticals and scientific equipment that demanded sophisticated multi-modal tracking, provide environmental controls across different transportation modes, and ultimately create new revenue streams from data services and tracking capabilities that emerged from their integration efforts.

From Value Trap to Strategic Powerhouse

When operations directors and CTOs focus on business outcomes first, data integration becomes a strategic capability and growth accelerator.

Jeff's question-first approach delivered remarkable results for the Scandinavian logistics company.

"That €8 million investment probably generated a… €150 to €175 million lift in value over the course of the next 5 years."