In South Africa, just about every leadership team we know is wrestling with the big question: How can data and analytics create real value and defend us from disruption? After all, no CEO wants to be “Uber’ed” or “Takealot’ed”.
As companies’ data balloons, signs of analytics-based innovation are appearing across industries, and the application of machine learning, robotics and automation are fast becoming reality.
Even the most analogue of companies are scrambling to invest in analytics.
Their hopes are high, their investments substantial; but the results have been inconsistent at best.
In a recent Bain survey of 334 executives, more than two-thirds said their companies were investing heavily in big data.
Not surprisingly, 40% expected to see a “significantly positive” impact on returns, with another 8% predicting “transformational” results.
Despite these high expectations, 30% of these executives said they lack a clear strategy for embedding data and analytics in their companies.
In our experience, too many companies focus on investing in the technology and talent associated with advanced analytics, without thinking through the broader changes they will need to make to fully deploy analytics and get favourable results.
Believers in data and analytics love to cite how Netflix deftly uses analytics to personalise the user experience and secure some of the most popular entertainment content available today, elevating its cachet in the market.
Incumbent companies are also using advanced analytics to transform their business models.
Think of Discovery Insure and its devices that allow customers to earn rewards for safe driving.
These success stories leave late adopters wondering what big steps they can take to catch up.
Many will rush to invest in the latest analytics software and infrastructure vendors and hire data scientists, but the ultimate winners will align these investments with their strategic and organisational needs in ways that lead to action and results.
For a company trying to figure out how to succeed, here’s what we recommend:
Put business science before data science. A company’s advanced analytics goals should reflect the firm’s broader aims, allowing it to amplify its most profitable products, services and processes.
Coca-Cola, for example, has been using sophisticated social listening tools to spot influencers who could help the company promote its signature brand to key customer groups.
Healthcare providers have deployed analytics to understand how good behaviours drive improved health outcomes, yielding better patient outcomes and lower costs.
Design the analytics with “the last mile” of adoption in mind.
The best analytics solutions emerge when data scientists and business stakeholders work together, set success requirements early and keep end users central to decisions.
As the team makes critical design choices, such as the right analytics method, members will need to consider how end users will act on those results.
The post Big Data: How advanced analytics can defend us from disruption appeared first on Statii News.
source http://news.statii.co.uk/big-data-how-advanced-analytics-can-defend-us-from-disruption/
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