For COOs, operations leaders and regional or business-unit heads
Bad data is an operations problem: AI readiness for COOs
The book’s central claim is that data is not produced by IT — it is the footprint the business leaves as it works. So when numbers are wrong, the cause is usually a workflow, and the fix belongs with whoever owns that workflow rather than with a cleanup project. For operations leaders, that turns AI readiness into an operating question: where work happens, who owns it, and which differences between sites and markets are deliberate.
Kindle edition · 99 pages · a 90-minute readRead a free sample on Amazon
From the book
What the book shows
- 01
The error starts in the work
Follow a single order: captured by sales, moved by logistics, booked by finance. When a field is wrong at the end of that chain, IT cannot simply engineer a fix, because IT did not run the workflow. The book’s question is which process produced the anomaly, and who owns it.
“The corrupted field is an operational bypass—a process defect masquerading as a technical glitch.”
Chapter 5The Diagnostic Mirror: Why Your Data Exposes Your Business - 02
Map where value is created, not where systems sit
The book’s Operating Tree maps the places where work is done — plants, hubs, sales centers, checkout channels — and the handoffs between them, with each place’s legitimate local differences recorded. In one example, a business the book calls OmniCo (a pseudonym) mapped fourteen of these places without changing any software, and could finally see itself.
“A node is a place where work is executed and financial value is born. Critically, a software instance is never a node.”
Chapter 8The Operating Tree - 03
A named owner unlocked the AI
In the book’s first (anonymized) case study, inventory allocation was given one named business owner. With that structure in place, predictive inventory models that had stalled for years scaled; the book reports an 8 percent reduction in global warehouse holding costs within two quarters — in that one company.
“…the VP of Global Logistics became the absolute owner of inventory allocation, strictly accountable when a warehouse defect distorted downstream automated routing.”
Chapter 19Case Study: The Company That Looked Ready
If you run a region or a business unit
The book’s Hub-and-Spoke model is built for the tension between global coherence and local autonomy. The hub decides only what must be shared: core definitions, the operating structure, rules of engagement and enterprise-level risk. The spokes own local customers, market execution, process variation and the tooling that fits their reality. Local differences are welcome — as long as they are visible, intentional and governed.
“The spokes are not second-class citizens. They are where value is created.”
Questions to ask
Questions for operations leaders, and for anyone running a region or unit:
- 1Can we show, on one page, where work actually happens and how value passes between those places?
- 2When a number is wrong, do we ask which system failed — or which process produced it and who owns that workflow?
- 3Does every critical domain — inventory, orders, customers — have a named business owner with decision authority?
- 4Which differences between our sites and markets are deliberate, and which only surface when data is aggregated?
- 5Where are people copying data between systems by hand just to keep work moving?
- 6Is the center approving local decisions — or are local units redefining shared terms on their own?
Where to start in the book
Chapter 5
The Diagnostic Mirror: Why Your Data Exposes Your Business — why data is the footprint of operations, and who owns its quality.
Chapter 8
The Operating Tree — the Operating Tree: nodes, connections and local context.
Chapter 12
The Hub-and-Spoke Enterprise — the Hub-and-Spoke enterprise: what is global, what is local.
Kindle edition · 99 pages · a 90-minute readRead a free sample on Amazon
Also see
- CFOsAI readiness for CFOs: questions to ask before funding more AI
- Data leadersData readiness for AI isn’t enough
- CEOsAI readiness for CEOs: what can’t be delegated
All roles: who the book is for →
About this page: our reading of Your data isn’t broken. Your operating model is. by Adam Ayres and Behrang Karimi, for COOs, operations leaders and regional or business-unit heads. The book itself is written for the leadership teams of complex enterprises. Quotes are word for word from the book; its case studies describe anonymized companies, and their results are not benchmarks.