Unlocking an Analytics Competitive Advantage in Three Steps
Lee Joon Seong, MD, ASEAN Accenture Analytics Lead, Accenture Digital
Organisations no longer need to rely on gut instinct to make important business decisions. Today, we are seeing many companies accelerating their investments in analytics capabilities and strategies, enabling more confident and informed decisions. Decisions that can lead to increased sales and marketing effectiveness, enhanced operational efficiency accelerated new product development, and more.
For instance, with Accenture’s help, Woodside implemented analytics for predictive maintenance and process-control in production operations across its liquefied natural gas (LNG) assets, and a Singapore-based life insurance company used predictive analytics to improve cross-selling by 180 percent. As another example, analytics helped make Singapore safer through the use of video and sensor analytics in the Safe City Test Bed project.
In tandem, we’re also finding organisations to be increasingly laser focused on obtaining increased value from their analytics investments through industrialization and ongoing innovations. According to a recent Accenture Analytics study, companies are demanding faster deployment of new analytics capabilities and tools through experimentation. They are also rolling out new integrated analytics programmes, where analytics capabilities are embedded across different functions at scale.
Haven’t fully adopted analytics yet? It isn’t too late and there are many exciting opportunities ahead
1.Align Analytics to Company Goals:
Identify a Chief Data and Analytics Officer or equivalent with the authority and accountability to initiate and manage the company wide analytics goals and journey. This executive determines the required talent pool, tools, and investments, and also identifies the gaps, redundancies and opportunities. He or she will also prioritize investments in capabilities to support the analytics operating model, governance structure and ways of working between departments.
2. Develop Rapid-deploy teams for Analytics Programmes: Analytics talent should be identified, organized effectively and retained. Try different team structures to see what works for you and explore non-traditional ways of tapping analytical talent like collaborating with academia. Once the talent has been identified or hired, organize them into analytics “pods”- a small, self-organizing team made up of members with multi-disciplinary skill sets - which will let them more effectively deploy analytics capabilities. It’s also important to relentlessly focus on being agile, proving the value of analytics in days or weeks (not months), and determining a path to scale once the analytics value has been demonstrated.
3. Sustain the Change: Assess your company’s understanding of analytics then undertake programmes, such as implementing an Analytics Academy, to ensure that both the business and analytics units can effectively collaborate to achieve the greatest analytics benefit. In addition to the Academy, companies can explore interactive learning and innovative technologies such as advanced visualization and immersive environments.
By following these three steps, you’ll be on your way to joining the local and global data-driven race and securing a greater competitive advantage.
Established in 1989, Accenture (NYSE: ACN) provides a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. The Ireland based firm has global presence across the United States, Asia Pacific, Africa, Europe and Middle East.
