Why develop an analytics strategy and roadmap?
Increasingly, most organizations of any scale have an analytics presence, either as an out-sourced service or as a staffed function. So why go through an analytics strategy and roadmap process?
Because the process enables your organization to substantially benefit in multiple ways:
- Creates a strategy for how your company can leverage data to make decisions
- Specifies the resources, organizational structure, and infrastructure required to achieve your desired analytics end state
- Enables you to identify and undertake complex analytics projects, like identifying a single view of your customers and their needs
- Helps you influence and communicate to leaders and employees across your entire organization
More broadly - without an analytics strategy, any organization’s long-term viability is at risk. Companies that thrive today do so largely because they have transformed from relying on intuition to making data-driven decisions. They systematically ideate and statistically test their ideas on a smaller scale before making major investments or changes – allowing them to pivot in response to changing market demands.
Leading companies are using their analytics capabilities not only to improve their core operations but to launch entirely new business models. As an example, the network effect of digital platforms, enabled by analytics, is creating a “winner takes most” dynamic in some markets.
To compete at this level requires a significant leap in analytics maturity. Without an analytics strategy and roadmap as a starting point, it is impossible to achieve the high level of transformation required to thrive. In addition:
- Many businesses fail in the execution of analytics, because they don’t build the skills and culture needed to embed new analytic capabilities into their business processes. As a result, nothing changes.
- Analytics initiatives also fail because they are not in sync with day-to-day processes and decision-making norms. In fact, the McKinsey studies on analytics indicate that the inability of organizations to integrate analytics into day-to-day processes is the second most difficult challenge behind acquiring talent.