Quantitative Research in Organizations, a course in the Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL) program, was redesigned by clinical assistant professor Ria Roy to meet practitioner’s needs within organizations. The course addresses aspects of analytics, quantification, visualization and the strategic use of data.
Practical application
As a data engineer for a multi-billion-dollar agriculture firm, Ben Heflin works with various data tools and integrations, including ERP, JDE, Power BI, Python, SharePoint, VBA, SAP and several others. Through the OPWL program, Heflin wanted to learn more about how he could apply his strengths in data and integrations to organizational performance.
In the Quantitative Research in Organizations course, students worked on a three-week-long data management plan (DMP), during which Heflin realized his organization could benefit.
“Designing decision trees on where and how to get the data has been critical. When people come into the ecosystem with the Wild West mentality, they tend to create a lot of tech debt and work really hard to develop something that already exists,” said Heflin.
“Furthermore, it was really important to define the skills needed to manage data; leadership seemed convinced that anybody could walk in off the street and manage a data ecosystem.”
The DMP project allowed him to develop standards that would better align the data with the various IT groups and better manage data that would reduce internal efforts to model and assemble, thus allowing more time for critical analysis.
“Data management plans can get incredibly complex, but they are extremely powerful impactful tools with tangible (financial and non-financial) benefits for an organization,” said Roy. “This project was included in the course redesign for this very purpose — to showcase how data can be systemically and strategically leveraged.”
Project payout
In the 10 months since Heflin implemented his data management plan within his organization, he has seen tremendous success.
At an individual level, the DMP has saved him five hours each week of unnecessary effort. The plan has significantly reduced cloud computing costs, waiting time and data manipulation for internal stakeholders. As of fall of 2024, the implementation has realized savings of approximately $40,000 for his group alone.
Heflin is working with his IT team to turn his DMP into a systemic solution. Implementing a solution like Heflin’s could potentially save the organization several hundred thousand dollars a year.
“What is exemplary in this instance is the impact and financial savings Heflin’s organization has realized in less than a year,” said Roy.
Roy is heartened that students like Heflin have recognized its true potential and have introduced it within their organization.
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