How Unified Data Can Help Manufacturers Unlock New Growth Insights

If you’ve ever tried to get a manufacturing team to change a workflow, adopt a new system, or stop guarding that sacred spreadsheet they’ve owned for years, you already understand this truth from Erik Henry of Simplified Data Solutions: “The most difficult part of data transformation is actual change management.”

What many manufacturers view as a “data problem” is almost always a behavior, culture, and alignment problem. The ERP, the CRM, the sensors, the dashboards — none of it matters unless the people who use them are bought in.

That’s why I invited Erik to join me on The ChangeOver Podcast. Erik sits at the intersection of technology, business strategy, and human behavior — a rare Venn diagram that positions him to help manufacturers turn fragmented data into real business insight.

This article breaks down the biggest obstacles manufacturers face when unifying data and preparing for AI adoption. Watch the full conversation below, or keep reading for key takeaways you can skim now and revisit in the episode later.

What you’ll learn:

• Why most manufacturers misdiagnose data problems as technology problems
• The real reason 95% of AI projects fail
• What unified data enables across ERP, CRM, sales, and marketing
• The top failure points in data unification — and how to avoid them
• Three steps manufacturing leaders can take in the next two weeks

Watch episode 32 of The ChangeOver, then subscribe on Apple, YouTube, Spotify, Weidert.com, or your favorite podcast app.

The “Data Goldmine” Myth: Why Most Data is Worthless Today

As we talked, this theme kept coming up: Data itself doesn’t have value. The value is in the insights you can find in the data.

Leaders often say, “We’re sitting on a goldmine of data.” But as Erik shared,

“A goldmine isn’t anything until somebody goes and pulls the gold out.” — Erik Henry, Simplified Data Solutions

Most manufacturers were told for years to “collect everything.” So they did — with sensors, PLCs, ERPs, spreadsheets, tribal knowledge, and systems that were never built to talk to each other. And as a result, many businesses now have mountains of unstructured, misaligned, disconnected data with:

• No context
• No accessibility
• No path to insight
• No measurable business value

And that’s why Erik routinely has to break hard news to leaders: If there’s no insight coming from the data, it’s not an asset. And to start forging a path to data value, you need to make it structured, unified, and actually used to inform decisions across operations, sales, and marketing.

What is unified data? A single, consistent, connected set of data across ERP, CRM, operations, and financial systems, used to generate cross-functional insights.

RELATED: Benefits of Integrating CRM and ERP with Marketing Automation Software 

Why AI Is Creating New Urgency (and Exposing Old Problems)

Five years ago, manufacturers could survive with siloed systems and the occasional heroic spreadsheet. Not anymore.

“Anybody who steps even a toe into AI learns very quickly that AI is all about data.” — Erik Henry, Simplified Data Solutions

Artificial intelligence-driven systems can’t work effectively with a data mess. To be able to derive growth-driving insights from the data, it needs to be

• Clean and unified
• Structured and aligned
• Context-rich and spanning the whole business

That’s part of the reason behind the MIT stat that 95% of new AI projects fail — not because the models are bad, but because often the data foundation is.

If manufacturers want to use AI for forecasting, scheduling, personalization, predictive maintenance, or automated sales outreach, data unification isn’t optional. 

It’s the prerequisite.

Unified Data Unlocks a New Level of Sales & Marketing Personalization

As a HubSpot Diamond Partner, Weidert’s seen firsthand what becomes possible when data and systems can finally talk to each other. So, imagine being able to create systems that can automatically:

• Trigger a re-engagement campaign when a customer hasn’t repurchased a product in six months
• Alert sales when inventory is high and outreach opportunities can be accelerated
• Build hyper-personalized messaging based on real purchase behaviors
• Identify cross-sell opportunities using historical service + sales + production data

This is the new marketing and sales game: personalization at scale — and it can only happen with unified data.

We’ve had CRM-skeptical manufacturers ask, “Well, then how have we grown this far without a CRM?” 

Typically, the answer is a combination of grit, passion, smart people, and spreadsheets. But what worked at startup doesn’t usually work at scale. Or, as Erik put it:

“What got you to where you are probably isn’t going to get you to where you need to be.” — Erik Henry, Simplified Data Solutions

The next era of manufacturing growth depends on integrated systems and real-time insight.

Top Failures in Data Unification — and How to Avoid Them

Failure #1: Lack of People Alignment

When leadership drops new technology onto a culture that isn’t prepared to use it, the project often dies right there. Before you can expect adoption, people need to understand why change is happening, not simply be told what is happening.

Failure #2: Lack of Active CEO Involvement

One of Erik’s biggest client red flags is a lack of CEO engagement. Without visible commitment at the top, change simply won’t stick.

Failure #3: Siloed Systems and Stealth Spreadsheets

Many “systems of record” still live in:

• Individual spreadsheets
• Local desktops
• One person’s institutional knowledge

Until leaders map where data actually lives, unification is impossible. That means digging in and finding out — before doing anything else.

A Practical Starting Point: What Leaders Should Do in the Next Two Weeks

Based on Erik’s recommendations, here are three actions every manufacturing leader can take immediately:

1. Assemble a Cross-Functional Friction Task Force

Include both people leaders and technical personnel. Over the course of two one-hour sessions:

• Identify every workflow where data causes friction, rework, or delays
• Put a dollar estimate on that friction
• Prioritize the top three opportunities

This exercise alone often uncovers six-figure discoveries in inefficiencies, on an annual basis.

2. Create a Comprehensive Data Inventory

Document:

• Every system where data lives
• Every spreadsheet controlling core processes
• Who owns it
• Whether any insight can currently be extracted

Almost no manufacturer has this internal intelligence, and it’s the information that’s needed to change the whole game.

3. Define the Upside: What Insights Would Transform Decision-Making?

Think beyond dollars in terms of insight value:

• What would real-time visibility be worth?
• What decisions could you make faster?
• What could you confidently automate?

Erik made the great point that, even at the C-level, ROI isn’t always a dollar sign. Peace of mind has tremendous value, and when top leadership can make business-driving decisions informed by trustworthy, up-to-date data, that translates into confidence.

When leaders name the opportunities, momentum toward unification becomes unstoppable.

How to Think About Data & ROI (Without Overcomplicating It)

It can be difficult to predict ROI from transformative change, especially right now when technologies are advancing faster than they can be implemented. But on a fundamental level, Erik encourages thinking about ROI in terms of two buckets:

1. Reducing Friction

Eliminating duplicate data entry, replacing manual reporting with automation, and finding ways to fix bottlenecks in scheduling or purchasing can all translate into smoother operations with less human error — and more human availability to do the kinds of work that cannot be automated.

2. Increasing Opportunities

This is the flip side of the coin: eliminating redundant tasks, reducing errors, and unifying data to add context can help improve capacity utilization, complete quotes faster, forecast demand more accurately, and improve the performance of targeted marketing and sales outreach.

Erik advises that most manufacturers should expect 4–8× ROI within 24 months for the right unification initiatives. And with modern AI-integrated tools, the price tag is dramatically more accessible than even three years ago.

Unified Data Is the Foundation for AI-Driven Growth

Manufacturing leaders know change is here. AI isn’t coming; it has arrived.

But AI-driven growth demands clean, unified, contextualized data, in the hands of teams who are aligned, informed, and engaged.

If conversations like this help you think differently about growth, data, and the future of sales and marketing for manufacturing, you won’t want to miss what’s coming up on The ChangeOver Podcast. Subscribe and never miss a new episode.