“I know my market,
how it works, the seasonality; my clients and I can do a better job than any of
your analytics nonsense!” If you hear someone say that today, especially
in light of what analytics can really do for an organization’s growth, you
know that someone is a bit of a living monument!
For though no one
disputes a business expert’s instinct, data analytics, with its roots firmly
within the ambit of statistical intelligence, is completely free of human
bias and assumptions that could creep into seemingly smart decisions. But that
is understating the advantages. The actual juice of analytics is to
construct the big picture from seemingly meaningless little
ones. Analytics synthesizes information from experiential historical
data that adds better credence and credibility in a management’s decision
making process. "Optimization" is often at the "core" of
most that Analytics seeks to deliver; and what organization in an age of
information overload - be it through the conventional customer cell, social
media, POS, emails and internet-would not want that? ‘None’ would
and should be the obvious answer yet the surprising fact is that there
remain a host of sleeping and lumbering giants.
Though every
organization worth its salt today understands the holy-grail that is
"information"; most continue to grapple with the problem of how
to leverage it. Many scratch the surface by employing overly simplistic
methods to glean, screen and interpret data in ad hoc bursts of well-intentioned
yet mis-guided enthusiasm- all this while choosing to disregard the fact that
their data (and analytics practitioners) can do far, far better. Instead of
getting easily satiated with the obvious and apparent, these organizations need
to be able to unlock real secrets-those that will make the
real difference.
Wouldn’t it be nice
if there was a steady flow of meaningful and relevant
information right into the lap(top)s of key decision makers- who could
then integrate these insights to their advantage? Of course it would
be!
The first step
towards this is ensuring the data being captured is useful, clean
and workable ( and taking corrective measures if not). This will form the
foundation of all data analysis that companies wish to do .So if they can’t do
this piece themselves consistently and properly, they shouldn’t wait to call
the analytics experts- who will then work the data in a turn key fashion- right
from preparing it in the way it should be to tinkering around with it in ways
only they know. The information that will finally provide will –as stated
before – be free of bias- based purely on cold hart facts- this information can
improve operational efficiencies, identify patterns and subsequent
opportunities and help companies manage and plan resources, processes and risks
in the way they don’t even realize they can.
But to reach this
stage they need to first accept that there is only so much their own instinct
or the ‘nose’ for business can do; that there is a reason why there are
analytics experts today; that there is a reason why they are busy.
