Top reasons why companies are at a competitive disadvantage, analytically speaking!
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Untimely Data - Probably the most important aspect of Decision Support Analytics is having current data. I have personally seen monthly metrics and performance reports being presented two or three months after the fact. This is the equivalent of picking up a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) from a few months ago and trying to get a sense for “what’s going on”. Having an integrated view of all the back office systems and market intelligence is the only way to stay ahead of the competition. By getting up-to-date information, your company can move towards predicting what will happen versus what did happen.
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Decentralized – I have heard arguments both ways; however, I believe the best place for analytics is in a central group that reports directly to the President of the company. The reasoning here is that if a company-wide analytics group reports to an Operations or Finance Senior Executive, then the results will be biased towards their area. Having a central group eliminates this bias and provides an acute focus on analytics. This also allows true analysts to be in charge of creating and presenting metrics and performance instead of functional employees getting another task added to their long list of responsibilities.
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Poor Presentation – If I counted every time I’ve seen an abuse of PowerPoint or visual presentations, I would probably be in the hundreds, if not thousands. I really can’t blame people for trying… But if you are unsure of your ability, get some assistance on optimizing presentations. Here is a blatant example: I witnessed someone using the automatic slide progression based on about 30 seconds per slide so they didn’t have to click to advance the slides. As you can imagine, it was an absolute disaster when the slides started automatically progressing when the speaker was half way through the slide and point. This is another reason for having a centralized group of people who are experts with analyzing and presenting data.
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No focus – Many companies today are focused on profit and selling, which isn’t a bad thing. However, many neglect the power of true analytics and the financial impact that having timely and accurate data can make. Decision Support Analytics should be on every CEO’s list of New Year’s resolutions or goals for 2007.
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Lack of Trust – Generally speaking, management tends to have less trust when the data is compiled by functional groups. The theory here is that the data tends to be presented in a biased manner based on what that group thinks is the “best story”. Believe me, this happens everywhere and all the time! There could be two stories to tell, but because one is negative, the other one is shown… sound familiar? My services provide an unbiased view to tell the real story by utilizing my expertise - analytics!
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