Real Analytics is the ninth of ten articles I am publishing from the Deloitte Tech Trends 2011 series
In 2010, many organizations began to see information automation outweigh business process automation as their highest priority area. In the reset economy, analytics offered improved visibility to drive operational efficiencies, as well as a platform for growth by addressing heart-of-the-business questions that could guide decisions, yield new insights and help predict what’s next. It seemed like a no-brainer. But companies quickly discovered that the journey is complicated – requiring a clear analytics vision aligned to the business strategy, several layers of supporting capabilities and the fortitude to embed analytical thinking across multiple facets of the organization. In 2011, leading organizations are launching broad initiatives with executive-level sponsorship, ready and eager to achieve their vision via real analytics.
Data volumes continue to explode, doubling every 14 months. Regulators are demanding deeper insight into risk, exposure and public responsiveness. Public and private organizations alike are feeling increased pressure to achieve profitable growth. New signals are evolving that contain crucial information about companies and markets – including sensor-laden assets, unstructured internal data and external sentiments shared via social computing. Cisco estimates that the amount of data flowing over the internet each year will reach 667 exabytes by 2013. The magnitude and complexity of global businesses have made it even more diffi cult for leaders to uncover hidden insight.
The crunchy questions haunting the business require a combination of hindsight, foresight and insight. By investing in a balance of information management, performance management and advanced analytics, organizations can make small steps, smartly made to capture measurable results. These can span from improving fragmented customer relationships by analyzing omni-channel interactions, to providing an integrated enterprise view of risk and finance. This is the essence of real analytics: delivering business value through the continuous build-out of core information disciplines.
While getting the right answers is critical, many organizations don’t normally know the right questions to ask to get there. Powerful new tools and supporting infrastructure have removed most technical constraints, but analytics initiatives continue to suffer from the lack of a clear vision and commitment to embed analytics-based approaches into how work is performed. Real analytics can add knowledge, fact-based predictions and business prescriptions – but only if applied to the right problems, and only if the resulting insight is pushed into action.
You can’t drive your car with only the rear view mirror – equivalent to historical reporting. You use the view out of the windshield and the dashboard gauges – Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and performance dashboards. In fact, many drivers take advantage of navigation systems fed by GPS to see the road ahead and direct the next turns. That’s like going from descriptive analytics to predictive and prescriptive. That’s moving from hindsight to insight to foresight for the business.
Read the full article . . . . Deloitte Tech Trends 2011 – Real Analytics
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Filed under: Information Technology, advanced analytics, analytics, Dealoitte, fact-based predictions, foresight, hindsight, information automation, insight, visibility
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