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AranduCorp » 2007 » October

Archive for October, 2007

Super Crunchers: a fresh view to predictive analytics

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

Super Crunchers? What are they? Super Crunchers is a term used by Ian Ayres to refer to organizations that analyze massive datasets at lightning speed to gain greater insights into human behavior. In other words, Super Crunchers are organizations that are using predictive analytics to gain insights from data.

If you want to have a fresh view on how predictive analytics can help you, I recommend you to have a look at the webcast: Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart. In this webcast, Ian Ayres, the author of Super Crunchers, tells the secrets of the “Super Crunchers”

From the description of the webcast:

In this brave new world of equation versus expertise, Ayres shows us the benefits and risks, who loses and who wins, and how super crunching can be used to help, not manipulate us. Gone are the days of solely relying on intuition to make decisions. No businessperson, consumer, or student who wants to stay ahead of the curve should make another keystroke without reading Super Crunchers.

Posted in Predictive Analytics | No Comments »

How can I get my organization started with business analytics?

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

There are a set of issues you have to consider before getting started.

  1. Do you have the leadership commitment in place? It is important that you have the leaders of your organization committed to act based on the results of analytics. No action means no gain. Therefore, you must guarantee that all the decision makers believe in the process and are willing to act according to the recommendations they get.

  2. Can you identify an area of your business that could benefit from the use of analytics? You should try to focus in an area that would provide faster results so you can start seeing the benefits of using analytics in the short term.

  3. Can you collect the necessary data to do business analytics? Data is King for business analytics. Only with data that captures the essence of the business problem you are addressing, you can expect to succeed in the use of business analytics.

  4. Do you have the skills in your organization (or are you willing to get the required skills) to develop and implement business analytics? Outstanding performers can get the most out of even the simplest business analytics tool in the market. On the other hand, poor performers can not shine even with the best business analytics tool in the market.

As you can see, everything starts and ends with people. People are your most valuable asset in implementing an analytics solution.

Once you have all the pre-requisites described above, you can follow this four-phase process to get started with business analytics:

  1. Plan by answering the following questions: what business areas can benefit the most from business analytics in the short and long term? What information is needed to measure success? What data is available?

  2. Prototype by first choosing an area that will show immediate benefit and that has data available. Second, you must identify the business and technical requirements. Next, you must start collecting and analyzing data to see if any trend or pattern emerges.

  3. Select the tools to use. You should try different vendors if possible. The idea here is to combine different solutions to analyze your business problem from different points of view and create an optimal overall solution that can meet a variety of your needs.

  4. Implement the business analytics solution in the area of your choice.

As a final note, I want to stress one more time the importance of People in the success of a business analytics implementation. You need the Right People to analyze your data and produce recommendations and you need the Right People to act based on those recommendations. In short: You need the Right People to succeed as an analytics competitor.

Posted in Business Analytics | No Comments »

Predictive analytics: how long before seeing the fruits?

Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007

In two previous posts (How predictive analytics can help you. Case 1: Retail and Case 2: Fundraising), I described some of the benefits of implementing predictive analytics solutions. If you read with interest those articles, you might be wondering: how long does it take to implement an analytics strategy and start seeing the benefits? The short answer is: “It depends”. Before embarking on an analytics adventure, you need to identify a part of your business that you want to improve. It is important that you can collect data on that area (do you have the hardware, software, and communications strategy for doing so?). You must also remember that collecting data takes time. For instance, one manager of customer analytics at UPS noted that they collected data for four years before it became usable. The next step is to make sure the leaders of your organizations are on the same page regarding making fact-based decisions. You must also secure and build analytics skills in your organization to ensure smooth “execution” and keep your competitive advantage. Once you have everything in place, you might be looking to several months for a pilot project on a very specific area or several years for an organization-wide analytics strategy.

To conclude, I will leave you an excellent advice offered by Thomas Davenport on his article: “Competing on Analytics”

“The best advice is to begin working on it [an analytics implementation] now, because it typically requires several years for analytical competitive strategies to come to fruition. […] However, despite the difficulty and expense of establishing these capabilities, many of the firms we have identified as early adopters of analytical strategies are clear leaders in their industries. This suggests the time and trouble necessary to become analytical competitors are definitely worthwhile.”

To learn more:

Competing on Analytics by Thomas Davenport, Don Cohen, and Al Jacobson

Posted in Business Analytics, Predictive Analytics | No Comments »