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“You can’t manage what you can’t measure”, goes a saying. These wise words from Peter Drucker form the basis as to why analytics is so critical to managing a business today. The objective of business analytics is to provide decision support to organisations.
The key to becoming more relevant to business and the top management is to ensure that those providing the analysis are sufficiently trained and experienced in both the science and the art of it and can grasp the practical realities of a business situation. One great way for IT to achieve this is to actually participate in key business discussions.
Analytics help ITDMs decode changing consumer predicament
Richard de Souza, Head-IT (Projects & Central Support), Mahindra Group says. “Often, IT is reactive and ends up creating “reports” that business asks for. However, by being part of key business review meetings, IT managers can appreciate and get an insight into the challenges that a business
“As times change, so does the role of IT which has to adapt to the new consumerisation phenomenon, where analytics forms a crucial part”
faces and address these challenges. I recommend that the IT team should invest time and energy in acquiring business certifications.” A supply chain focused IT team member having a basic certification course in supply chain management would go a long way in understanding the nuances of the planner’s role.
Rotation between business and IT roles will encourage the team to keep innovating in the fast changing domain of analytics. Sudesh Prabhu, Senior Sales Director--EPM, BI and Exalytics, OracleIndia, says, “Analytics can help ITDMs decode the changing consumer predicament and identify operational inefficiencies within the organisation.” According to industry research, organisations that use analytics get $10.66 for every $1 they spend on analytics.
“ Analytics can help ITDMs decode the changing consumer predicament and identify operational inefficiencies within the organisation”
Analytics is an enabler for IT & business
IT is seen and treated as an important enabler of other parts of the business, and not separate from the business. Phillip Beniac, Regional Vice President, Qlik Asia Pacific, says, “The new enterprise is built and fuelled by empowered people--people who manipulate data, acquire the tools they need to get their jobs done, and create their own content, mashups, or apps.”
The real challenge is in handling unstructured data which is now growing exponentially, as customers embrace digital channels and live out their lives leaving digital traces that are now capable of being mined within the boundaries of customer privacy and the rule of law.
It’s unrealistic to expect customers to express themselves entirely through structured data. For example, a customer can rate a branch visit experience as 2/5 on a 5 point quantitative scale, or write a review which goes: “I suppose this branch is a good place to go if you like endless waits and stale cigarette smoke.”
The former is simple to process, but the latter provides significantly rich data on mood, context and cause. Advanced analytics techniques are progressing towards capturing the sentiment, emotional content of data and then making it available for actionable insights.
Actionable intelligence is key to accelerating growth
Citing an example, Prabhu points out those retailers usually know who buys their products. Use of social media and web log files from their e-commerce sites can help them understand who didn’t buy and why they chose not to. Actionable intelligence is the key to accelerating the growth of companies.
The cloud, rogue IT spending, consumerisation of IT and outsourcing are just a handful of the many competing interests that threaten the viability of the corporate IT department They will apply technology to enable the business strategy from information integration to database administration, security, and infrastructure.” de Souza adds, “As times change, so does the role of IT which has to adapt to the new consumerisation phenomenon, where analytics forms a crucial part.”V Ananthanarayanan, Associate Vice President, Business Insights, HDFC Life says, “The BI & Analytics unit must be the business face of IT. IT departments must soon realise that they play a key role in ensuring that all technologies are integrated and interconnected.
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