Overcoming objections to analytics

Overcoming objections to analytics

Whenever I bring up the utilization of more complex methods AKA Analytics to address business problems, I always hear the challenge that the business is not ready for analytics.  That however is the ages old argument usually made by people new to the field of BI, content with outdated view of BI as a reporting department, or generally fearful of the inevitable changes that will occur when data becomes a key driver of strategy and is no longer only used as a rear view mirror. 

The problem with that argument is analytics is not implemented by going to the business and asking them if they want a neural network to solve a problem, it is just an advanced tool in our toolset that can solve complex problems.  For instance, BI’s sole purpose is to address business questions that the business does not have the capacity to answer on their own and the question can wholly or partially be answered by delving into our data environment (organic and 3^rd party).  Take for example the questions below:

·       Who are my most profitable advisors?

·       Who are most likely to be my most profitable advisors next year?

I solve my first question with a basic sort.  Oversimplified, but that is basically the request...SELECT (from my existing data)…ORDER BY.  For the second problem, I build out a regression or classification model utilizing historic data to get to my list of advisors with a propensity to be profitable in the future.

Note, for both questions all I provide to the business is a list of advisors, how I came up with that list is irrelevant to the business as long as it is totally correct in the first instance and better than any list they would create heuristically in the second.  At no point do I ever mention “Analytics” to the business, I apply it as I would any tool in my data toolkit.

So, the real question is, can we answer all of the questions coming from the business?  Does every decision maker feel like they have complete certainty of the outcome of their decisions? Are we maximizing the return on our time spent with external contacts? Is our margin of error when forecasting within an acceptable range based upon underlying historic trends? Can we quantify the value of our value add programs?.......and more.

If we can answer those questions with standard reporting or dashboards, then we would be the first.  I doubt that that is the case.  The excuses for not addressing more complex questions that when answered can directly affect our bottom line are reckless, wrong, and quite frankly, a dereliction of duty.  I seriously doubt that the status quo is going to get us where we want to be.

Or I could be wrong……doubt it.