The last mile of the business analytics transformation--taking business analytics to the user--requires the alignment of goals, data, and models with business processes, technology and key performance indicators.

1. Enterprise Analytics Strategy:
Taking Business Analytics to the User
Ruben Mancha, PhD
Assistant Professor of Information Systems
Babson College
March 8, 2016

2. © 2016 RUBEN MANCHA – ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
Take-home message:
Taking business analytics to the user
requires strategic planning and
action on technologies, processes,
and key indicators.

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RESERVED
The Purpose of Business Analytics
•Improve decision
making
• Strategic insight
• Product and service offerings
• Operational efficiencies
•Enable new business
models
Rationalization
Reengineering
Paradigm shift

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Business Analytics - Requirements
•Data
•Volume, variety, velocity, and veracity
•Internal and external to the enterprise (APIs)
•Models
•Problem—data—models
•Technology
•Landscape of analytics technologies

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Data
• Variety and velocity more important than volume to improve
operations and decisions
• Not necessarily “big data”
• Veracity is an issue (sampling)
• Structured and unstructured
• Challenge of making the decision of what to keep and what
to discard
• Adequate and clean data is expensive to obtain and costly to
maintain and store long-term

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RESERVED
Models
• Models create value (foresight)
• Models incorporate assumptions in the decision-making
process
• Models are built in technology and business
environments

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Technology
• Data is stored on hardware
• Data is managed by algorithms, which are constrained by the
technology
• User interfaces with data through technology
• Technology is used to collect data (e.g., IoT)

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RESERVED
Landscape of Analytics Technologies
(Fast evolving and incomplete…)

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RESERVED
Analytics Maturity – Technologies
CompetitiveAdvantage
Reporting
Visualization
(Dashboards)
Diagnostic
Prediction
Analytics Maturity
Prescription
(Optimization)
Cognitive
Analytics
Foresight
Description
Insight
Hindsight

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Analytics Maturity – Technologies
Disconnect between technical competencies and analytics solutions
• Data Scientists: 0.1%
• Analysts: ~ 3%
• Business User: 97%
Automation
QlikView

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Analytics Maturity – Data ManagementPotentialforCompetitiveAdvantage*
Data Management Enabled Analytics Maturity
Structured Data Structured + Unstructured Data
RDBMS
(SQL)
DW
Spread-
mart
Online Transaction
Processing
NoSQL
• Performance
• Scalability
• Cost per GB
Data Lakes
*GIGO
Parallel
NoSQL +
Analytics
Operations &
Reporting
Analytics

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Analytics Maturity – Data ManagementStoragePerformance
Volume of Data
NoSQL Database
Relational
Database

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RESERVED
Analytics Maturity – Data Management
XML
JSON
Application
Program
Interface
(API)
NoSQL Frameworks Parallel Data Processing and
Distributed File Systems with Analytics
Platforms
HD File System
IaaS
Analytics as a Service

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Yes to Business Analytics, but how?
Key
Performance
Indicators
(KPIs)
Business
Processes
Business
Goals
Enterprise Strategy
Business Analytics Strategy
Data
Models
Technology

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RESERVED
“Analytics technologies are useless.
They can only give answers”
Adapted from Pablo Picasso
“If you can’t measure it,
you can’t manage it.”
“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch
drill. They want a quarter-inch hole”
Theodore Levitt

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The Last Mile of Business Analytics Strategy
We have business goals, we have identified
relevant data, and we have formulated
appropriate models; how do we realize value?
•The last mile of business analytics
transformation requires the alignment of
goals, data, and models with business
processes, technology and key performance
indicators
•Complementary assets must be in place

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RESERVED
The Last Mile of Business Analytics Strategy
- Goals
- Data
- Models
- Business
Processes
- Technology
- Key
Performance
Indicators
Network of
Complementary Assets:
- Organizational culture
and structures
- Governance, security
and ethics
- Analytics acumen
(digital innovators)
- Skills: technical,
communication, etc.
- Infrastructure

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RESERVED
The Last Mile of Business Analytics Strategy
Key
Performance
Indicators
(KPIs)
Business
Processes
Business
Goals
Data
Models
Technology
Business Analytics Last Mile:

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RESERVED
Thank you.
@RubenMMancha