Towards a Data-driven Organization: A Roadmap for Analytics

Building a Data-driven Organization requires identifying and prioritizing the opportunities where advanced analytics can make a material difference to the quality of decisions!

I was one of those fortunate few to have an opportunity to work on both sides of the table, both as a provider of services and as a consumer of technology and business services.  A few years back when I was working on the other side of the table, I have been asked to explore setting-up an analytics lab to support decision makers in different BUs and Functions.

I went through the first few preparatory steps of taking stock of BI–DW practices across the locations, data availability, and data quality, key analytics requirements as per existing practices. Next, I attempted the ever-difficult task of talking to some of the stake-holders on what they expect from an Analytics Lab. Their reactions varied from “you first-make-our-IT-systems-work” to “do-we-ever-get-the-data we need, when-we need-it”.

When asked about the time they spend on creating a report vs. analyzing a report; one of the more vocal feedback was: “Reports are usually made because we are asked to submit them for reviews. We spend 99% of the time chasing the data, 1% in creating a report barely managing to submit it before deadline, we rarely ever get the time to review and analyze a report”.

I have persisted and pestered a willing-few to list out the specific data-analytics requirements to support their decisions. To cut to chase, I did not have much success. While some drew a blank, many have given me a list of everything … “After all we don’t know what the Board is likely to ask me in my review…”

I tried some of the market leading analytics firms next. “If you tell us the problem you are trying to solve, we will collect the data from your multiple applications, clean and normalize the data, then run analytics on top of them.”Not one to give up easily, I decided to seek help from consulting companies to help me understand the way forward.  I called the usual suspects, and as per usual, they were more than willing to do a due-diligence to suggest a way forward. “You see…we will start with all BI reports, consolidate the reports based on actual usage statistics & add analytics on top of them.”  Somehow, starting from existing BI reports did not sound right to me.

I attempted to convince them that I need a Master-Plan to identify all opportunities for Advanced Analytics, Create a Roadmap for converting the company into a data-driven organization, & a Business-Case with cost-benefit. I was keen on identifying “all the opportunities” for data-driven decision-making in the organization. But sadly, there were no takers.

For some of you, the story must be familiar. While value from analytics in areas such as Retail, Fraud Detection, Customer Acquisition etc. is now unquestionable, Gartner still mentions only 30% of all analytics initiatives deliver some business value. Gartner also mentions that investment into Advanced Analytics is now considered a survival necessity for organizations to compete in increasingly digitized market place.

However, most CXOs we have talked to think that the very idea of Data-driven Organization is far-fetched and too big a leap from where they are currently. Some told us they are yet to see results from their SAP Business Objects / Business Intelligence investments. Most admit they seldom know “what data” they need prior to an important meeting, and hence ask for “as much data” as they can get.

On the other hand, CIOs complain that “satisfaction” of the business is an ever-moving target and their internal customers seldom know what they want. Some CIOs mentioned that they produce hundreds of customized-reports, most of which are rarely used by the business.

So there lies the challenge of investing into Advanced Analytics and making it work, and deliver value.