• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
Market Hill | a northdoor group company |

Market Hill | a northdoor group company |

Working on big, expensive, complicated technology problems.

  • Home
  • Market Hill in the news
    • The Library
      • Guide to Tech Value Creation
      • AWS re:Invent 2020 simplified
      • AWS Cheat Sheet
  • What you can expect
  • | Tech Product Value Creation™, by Market Hill |
  • About Market Hill
    • Our relationship with Northdoor
  • How to get in touch
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Outcomes over Output. The value of making tech change.

Thomas Ballard · October 15, 2021 ·

This week I read the book ‘Outcomes over Output’.

This book was recommended to me after an exchange with a client about data analysis methods. We talked at length about the math rather than the value acting now would realise for their investor.

This example will probably resonate with you when working with portco tech leaders on value creation initiatives.

‘There’s usually uncertainty when we’re trying to generate outcomes. Will the output create the outcome? Will the outcome contribute to the impact? We often don’t know — there’s no data, or the data we have is inconclusive.

If we don’t have the data to support our hunches, then we have to treat the ideas differently than if we know our ideas are true. We have to treat them as assumptions….…we believe that if people share pictures of our t-shirts (online) at a greater rate, it will prompt existing customers to return to our site at a greater rate.

We’ll know we’re right when we see a correlation between social shares and return visits’

Seiden, J. (2019), Outcomes over Output, P.26.

—

Do you find yourself sitting down with your portco tech teams and feeling frustrated by uncertainty, risk aversion, the desire to do just good enough?

These could all be signs your tech teams are focused on the output rather than the outcome.

For example, risk reduction is the most commonly used tech value creation lever. These are 3 common examples of risk reduction:

  • Migrating from legacy tech platforms.
  • Reducing reliance on hardware/software suppliers
  • Resolving critical technology bottlenecks

Most tech teams when asked the value of taking action are unable to articulate the benefit of these initiatives in financial terms.

They focus solely on the output and not what it would enable them to do, the outcome, the value.

What if you knew you were spending 5x more time maintaining legacy systems than you were building new products? Or you were the only customer of a software supplier’s bespoke 25yr old system. Or tech scaling issues meant you couldn’t meet peak sales volumes on the biggest shopping days of the year?

If you can measure it, then you can put a value on it. There is no excuse for not being able to put a $ value on making technology change.

Until next time.

Thomas

  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn

You can sign up for more ‘unconsidered needs’ below.


You can sign up for more ‘unconsidered needs’ below…

Unconsidered Needs Private Equity, value creation

Market Hill | a northdoor group company |

· Market Hil © 2023 | a northdoor group company ·

  • Privacy Policy
We use cookies on our website. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use cookies.
Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Cookie Policy

Cookies

  1. A cookie consists of information sent by a web server to a web browser and stored by the browser. The information is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. This enables the webserver to identify and track the web browser.

  2. We may use “session” cookies, “persistent” and “Google advertising” cookies on the website. We will use the session cookies to: keep track of you whilst you navigate the website. We will use the persistent cookies to: enable our website to recognise you when you visit. We will use Google advertising cookies to collect data about your traffic and identifiers, also to link activity across devices and measure conversion events but it is done in a way that does not personally identify you.

  3. We use Google Analytics to analyse the use of this website. Google Analytics generates statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website. Google will store this information. Google’s privacy policy is available at: http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html.


Disabling cookies

You can typically remove or reject cookies via your browser settings. In order to do this, follow the instructions provided by your browser (usually located within the “settings,” “help” “tools” or “edit” facility). Many browsers are set to accept cookies until you change your settings.
Further information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your computer or mobile device and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org and www.youronlinechoices.com.uk.

Conversion / Tracking pixels

We pay for advertising from marketing partners on other sites, for example, Facebook/LinkedIn. These third parties sometimes require that we put a tiny image (“pixel”) from their site on any landing pages that users might arrive at. These pixels can create cookies for the third party so we can work with them to understand how successful their marketing campaign was. We also need to understand where a user came from, so that, if the user goes on to sign up on our Website, we can pay the correct marketing partner for their service. This website uses retargeting services from the social network LinkedIn. LinkedIn collects certain information via cookies to determine which web pages are visited. This data is then used to associate your browser with demographic categories, and serve LinkedIn ads based on your past visits to this website. Please note that any information collected by LinkedIn via cookies is not linked to any customer’s personal information collected by us.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT