We Have Always Done It This Way . . .

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

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In this blog, we will address how to maximize the value of analytics and big data. A lot of attention is being given in the media to both of these topics. What is not being discussed much is the basic question:

Is your organization ready to actually embrace making decisions and setting strategies based on new operational insights and facts versus on traditional information, experience, tribal knowledge and/or opinions?

Let’s assume that your organization has invested in the ability to gain meaningful insights about your internal operation, your customers and the marketplace from analytics and big data. You are now at the Intersection of Change to integrate this information into your business decision making processes. How will your organization act? Will those insights be fully embraced, cautiously considered or mostly ignored?

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Naturally we are not discounting the value of using experience and knowledge of the business in making smart decisions and setting future business strategies. However, companies now have the opportunity to embrace the insights gained from analytics and big data and use that experience to create cross-functionally developed strategies that break functionally siloed decisions! Decisions that will benefit the financial performance of the enterprise and not just specific functional operating metrics.

Let’s think objectively about your organization’s ability to facilitate change. Which of the colors below would you assign them?

Blog017_b_WeHaveAlwaysDoneItThisWay Blog017_c_WeHaveAlwaysDoneItThisWayBlog017_d_WeHaveAlwaysDoneItThisWay
My guess is that most companies, if being honest, would assign their organization a red or yellow rating. Therein lies the problem. 

In order to get the most value out of your investments in analytics and big data, you must provide the leadership and commitment to address change management issues. Often, it takes the leadership and courage of one person to say, “Just because we have always done it this way, doesn’t make it the best way, or the only way…we can do better!” We call this person, the “Agent of Change.”

During the transition, the organization will push back. There are always reasons to return to the older, more comfortable way of doing business. The organizations that recognize that the wisdom of senior management will be improved and more highly prized when using analytics and big data will be the ones that gain significant competitive advantage. Those who do not have “Agents of Change” will see very little in the way of ROI from the analytics and big data investments.

Here is a great source for Change Management best practices: Harvard Business Review

Are you ready to be the “Agent of Change”?

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Maximizing Your S&OP – IBP Profit Contributions

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data
 

Maximizing Your S&OP – IBP Profit Contributions

There is a lot of discussion in the market about Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) and Integrated Business Planning (IBP). One line of thought is that companies with mature S&OP programs will naturally evolve to include enhanced IBP capabilities. I have a separate view and believe these two important business activities serve different but complimentary purposes. Regardless of where you are on this issue, the question is “How do I get the maximum value out of S&OP and IBP activities that will continue to positively impact the bottom line?”

What does that have to do with analytics and big data? Well just about everything. Regardless of how you are addressing your S&OP and IBP business requirements, they both require the support of user driven analytics that utilize cross-functionally validated data. Getting this right provides tremendous synergy not only in supporting both of these critical business needs, but in growing sales, cutting costs, expanding market share and therefore increasing the profit of the enterprise.

Let’s start by looking at a simple definition for each:

  • Sales & Operations Planning – a single operating plan that has executive commitment that allocates critical resources to most effectively satisfy customer demands in a profitable way.
  • Integrated Business Planning – planning, implementation and monitoring activities that focus on the identification of specific improvement opportunities (strategic or operational) related to a product(s), customer(s), channel(s) or an operating region to continually improve financial performance and/or gain market share.
IPB_S&OP

To be most effective, both S&OP and IBP require strong collaborative and cross-functional decision making processes. Decisions that are based on accurate insights regarding historical performance (descriptive and diagnostic analytics) as well as anticipated customer and business requirements (predictive and prescriptive analytics).

As I have commented in earlier postings (earlier posts here) descriptive, diagnostics, predictive and prescriptive analytics must be based on accurate and validated data. Many companies are struggling with how to turn their data from a liability into an asset. For those companies, this issue will only grow as more and more sources of data are made available to support various forms of decision making activities. If you are not proactively addressing this issue, it will significantly impact the capability of your S&OP and IBP activities to drive the value that you should expect from these business activities.

How many times have you been involved in an S&OP meeting where everyone brings in their laptop and sits down to start the meeting? The discussion focuses on the fact that there were large variances in the plan developed in the last S&OP meeting versus what actually occurred operationally. For the first half of the meeting, people offer different explanations and opinions on the variances based on their analysis using the disparate data available to them. Alternatively, everyone could have had advanced information with regard to exactly what happened and the “root cause” of why it happened. The focus at the start of the meeting would then be to discuss these facts and decide on a course of action.

To gain the most value in your S&OP and IBP activities business users must be empowered by having access to meaningful analytics that rely on one source of consistent, validated data and that support cross-functional planning, execution and monitoring activities. Get it right, and you won’t start your meetings trying to ‘convince’ others why variances happened. You will walk into your meeting understanding specific performance details. Get it right and your meetings will be based on fact based discussions leading to the adjustments that you should make to drive positive impact. Impact that is measured by ongoing contributions to financial performance, i.e. shareholder value. Value that drives competitive advantage!

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Sustainable Profit Growth

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

Sustainable Profit Growth

If you have been following this blog you know that the emphasis is to encourage companies to work smarter in their mission to drive shareholder value through a sustainable growth in profit performance.

I know that this seems like a no brainer but the reality is that companies are often trying to achieve this mission with limited visibility to the real drivers and inhibitors of profit performance.  Everyone has the P&L.  However, I find that most companies today cannot easily peel back that onion to have very specific and actionable insights for a specific customer or product that can make an immediate and measurable profit impact.  Instead, by default, strategies are often developed using a “one size fits all” approach.  The common mantras are “cut costs” and “increase sales” to increase overall margins.

  One Size Fits Most  

However, there is a growing level of need to tackle this problem.  And while it is rarely articulated, the real solution is to increase profits by truly understanding the product and customer profit “winners” and “losers” and to group or segment them in order to create specific strategies that increase their profit contributions.

Customer and product segmentation activities are a very hot topic in the industry today.  What successful companies are doing differently is developing the capability to better understand how customers and products differ in their profit performance.  Intelligent segmentation activities support the fundamental need for companies to work smarter, not necessarily harder, to increase their quarterly earnings and shareholder value, and quickly.

How do I approach customer and product segmentation activities?  Let me offer three straight forward questions that I hope will be helpful.  Empowering the organization to be able to answer these questions will lead to smart decisions to create sustainable growth in profits:

  • Where do I specifically make and lose money with my customer transactions and what is causing the specific profit performance spectrum (selling price, discounts, cost to serve, etc.) by individual customer, channel and region?
  • What specific actions can I take right now to increase the profit contributions by product and/or by customer?
  • Once specific actions have been implemented, are these specific strategies for a customer, product, channel, and/or region working and having a direct positive impact on their profit performance?

Product and customer segmentation activities are critical areas of focus for effective Integrated Business Planning (IBP) solutions.  Developing this organizational capability provides immediate and sustainable value.  Value that drives competitive advantage!

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Where’s the beef?

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data
 

Where’s the beef?

With all of the attention being given to analytics and big data, the question that I often hear is:

“How are companies really solving specific business problems using analytics and big data?  Talk to me about the real and sustainable value that companies are finding by investing in analytics and big data capabilities.”

To coin a phrase made popular years ago by a fast food chain “Where’s the beef?”

In earlier blog postings, I explained how analytics, coupled with accurate and specific data, can be used to facilitate cross functional decision making that is based on facts, not allocations, estimates or opinions.  Moving beyond “siloed’ data and decision making processes can create a real advantage in driving increased financial performance.  This advantage becomes a competitive differentiation that is based on factual insights across the entire enterprise versus departmental decisions that are based on isolated operating metrics.

Navigating in today’s complex business environments requires the ability to make smarter, pinpointed decisions.  The myriad of systems with segregated data often make it difficult to have the right information that is needed.  Better decisions are driven by having complete visibility across the enterprise.  With that visibility, very specific strategies by region, individual customers, product categories, SKU’s or channels can be tested, deployed and monitored.  This avoids the trap of trying to force a 'one size fits all' policy decision based on incomplete data both before and after the decision.

So assume for a moment that your company has defined very specific profit improvement goals that are not being met.  You have a cross functional team assembled.  You have all of the data you need, not just from one system but from EVERY system.  The data is accurate and complete.  There is no organizational anxiety about its source or validity.  With the proper analytics and data, you would want to simply and quickly answer the following questions:

  • What are the specific and detailed facts that offer insights regarding this current lack of performance?  (Descriptive Analytics)
  • Considering the end to end operation, what caused this performance to happen, i.e. the root cause that drove this performance? (Diagnostic Analytics)
  • What would be the financial impact if we make these very specific cross functional changes? (Predictive Analytics)
  • What other options do we have that the team has not considered or that are too complicated to completely define currently?  (Prescriptive Analytics)

It might be utopia for your company, but not for companies that have successfully developed Integrated Business Planning (IBP) solutions through the proper alignment of analytical and data capabilities.  Having this organizational capability provides immediate and sustainable value.  Value that drives competitive advantage by showing “Here’s the beef”!

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

“Who’s” on First, “What’s” on Second, “I Don’t Know’s” on Third

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data
 

“Who’s” on First, “What’s” on Second, “I Don’t Know’s” on Third

Many of us remember the great comedy routine by Abbott & Costello Who’s” on First, “What’s” on Second, “I Don’t Know’s” on Third.  If not, take a look at this YouTube link for a quick laugh:

 

So what does this have to do with Big Data and the value that can be derived through meaningful business analytics?  Well just about everything.  In the Abbott & Costello routine, the names of the players on the bases are creating miscommunication and confusion.  The same confusion can often be seen when companies are trying to derive meaningful insights through Big Data initiatives.

Big Data initiatives that create “One Version of the Truth” are more successful in driving strategies that are actually implemented and that have significant financial impact.

Here are three considerations to help drive One Version of the Truth to achieve success and the realization of significant financial impact through the use of analytics and Big Data:

 
  • Cross-functional participation is critical.  This is especially true in defining the objective (intent of the effort), reaching agreement on how the Big Data is going to be used (repurposed), determine the sources of the data and the data validation process.  Cross-functional consensus early in the process can help eliminate the analytical results being questioned and or dismissed. Without cross functional participation, you minimize your chances at finding One Version of the Truth and achieving success.
  • Assuming the result you are seeking is an ongoing need of the business, it is important to recognize early on that your Big Data approach must be sustainable.  This means that the sources of the data, the rules on how data is going to be used and the way that validation occurs are repeatable and consistent.  Not giving this the right level of priority is a sure way to lose the organization’s confidence in the ongoing results. You don’t want to create One Version of the Truth once, you need to be able to create it every time.
  • Big Data initiatives need to be very intentional with regard for the desired result. Hoping to find those nuggets of gold by wandering around a landscape containing masses of data is futile.  One Version of the Truth eliminates turf battles and highlights not just nuggets but veins of gold.

Naturally there needs to be flexibility to make changes but ensuring that the above considerations are applied is critical.

For those that don’t agree, consider the following: how many times have you been involved in a project where the work that was done was solid but at the close of the effort someone objects to the results?  Their argument is that they don’t trust the data that was used or agree with the analytics approach that was taken.  Yep, one step forward, two back and then the nail in the coffin.

No one wants to be associated with a career ending project that fails.  Following the three considerations above can help.  Otherwise you may find yourself answering the question from others in your company “Who’s on First”?

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Roadkill – How To Avoid Being Crushed By Data

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

Roadkill – How To Avoid Being Crushed By Data

Imagine that you are having a dream that is quickly turning into a nightmare.  You find yourself standing in the middle of a newly constructed super highway.  You are amazed at the vast number of lanes on both sides of this man made structure.  You have been told that you are there to find out how drivers are performing on these lanes with accurate measurements and to report back meaningful insights.  To do this, you are to utilize your computer, camera and a smart phone.

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As you stand there trying to get your bearings, you notice the following:

  • the volume of the cars moving in each direction is significantly increasing over time
  • cars are entering from a variety of new entry points
  • the speed of the cars is exponentially increasing to a point that what you are seeing is turning into a blur

You feel helpless using the tools that you have been given and cannot see how to possibly do your job.  In fact, you realize that if you are not careful, you could become so confused that you could put yourself in harms way and become a roadkill casualty!

Sound silly?  I am sure it does but replace the road lanes with data streams coming from a growing number of sources and at an ever increasing rate of speed.  Add the pressure of a rapidly changing commercial environment and the need to gain meaningful insights to stay ahead of the competition or to be left behind in the commercial dust.   It is not too much of a stretch of the imagination.

Recently, I watched an interview of Thomas Malone, from the MIT Sloan School of Management on DCV-TV. The interview concerned his prediction 25 years ago on the emerging role of e-commerce.

DCV-TV

Mr. Malone made several interesting observations about how successful organizations will operate and win using ever increasing amounts of data:

  • by harnessing the power a collaborative approach between man & machine where both contribute and learn from the work of the other (“collective intelligence”)
  • by creating an environment to empower the individual to use data and computing power to solve critical business needs (e.g. Google and eBay)

These are directly applicable to any company’s strategy in getting the full benefit of the ever increasing volume and speed of data and to obtain a competitive advantage over your competition.

Let’s build on Mr. Malone’s thoughts and go back to our analogy of not being “roadkill” on your data super highway.  How many of the following are true for your organization?

  • You have cross-functional consensus on the value of measuring specific areas of performance
  • You have a technology platform provides one “One Version of the Truth” of information captured from ever increasing sources and volumes of data
  • You have created a user environment that empowers individuals to continually gain insights by applying their creative skills in addition to taking advantage of advanced computing correlations and learnings (“collective intelligence”)
  • You have recognized that your approach must be scalable and repeatable for sustained value
  • You periodically highlight to the organization the value that has been gained by the effort

The world today is full of examples where relatively young companies are outpacing traditional competitors in multiple industries by changing the game of how to win market share.

I read recently that certain state Department of Transportation organizations are experimenting with recycling roadkill into compost as a cost savings initiative (click here for article).

Companies that take on the challenge of mastering their data and empowering individuals with various forms of intelligent analytics will not need to worry about being someone else’s compost. For everyone else, there are no guarantees.  Like Mr. Malone said, just look at Google and eBay!

I would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Show Me The Money – Building Organizational Momentum

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data
 

Show Me The Money - Building Organizational Momentum

Continuing the theme of Big Data initiatives need to be very intentional, we now turn our attention on how to build momentum by focusing on examples of how companies are financially benefiting from their successful efforts with Big Data.  Specifically, let’s talk about three areas that are getting a lot of attention in many companies.

Product Segmentation – having accurate insights with regardto how a particular product is performing with regard to contribution to profit can be eye opening.  Forget the expected “bell-shaped” distribution curve and expect to see more of a skewed left hand spike (left is negative or marginal behavior) and a prolonged tail of the curve to the right.  Couple this with where the product falls in its product life cycle and you have the tools necessary to drive actionable steps to dramatically impact financial performance.  This has been demonstrated in multiple industry with astonishing results.  You may be saying, “Yes but we have to have product x to sell product y”.  That may be true but what if the customer is “cherry picking” and you actually have an opportunity to identify where that paradigm just doesn’t hold water.  Getting to these forms of actionable insights builds excitement and momentum for your Big Data efforts.

Customer Segmentation – talking about skewed bell shape curves, how about having over 50+ % of you customers performing marginally or continually being unprofitable.  Want to fire them?  Well possibly a better strategy would be to understand why they are unprofitable vs a minority of similar type customers who are contributing to the bottom line.  A better strategy for some customers may be to determine how to get the marginal customers to emulate the behavior of the well performing ones.  Moving away from a “one size fits all” customer strategy can offer significant increases in profit contributions.

Operational Realignments – no, we are not talking about a large, time consuming optimization project that will be difficult to accurate monitor the realized ROI due to unforeseen changes in the future.  In fact, it is just the opposite.  Identifying very specific and target changes using Big Data can yield impressive results and have the organization want to do more hunting for operation improvements.  A recent example was the changing of certain inventory stocking decisions tied to customer demand yielded not only higher service levels but cut millions of dollars of cost out of the operation.

The above are just a small sample of how companies are driving increased momentum for their quest of improving financial performance using Big Data.

We would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Creating A Success Framework – 5 Steps To Follow

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data
 

Creating A Success Framework – 5 Steps To Follow

In my past blog posting, I continued to highlight the need for Big Data initiatives to be very intentional in their focus and execution and suggested that there are three main success drivers.  In this posting, I will address the second driver which is following 5 steps that increase the chances of success.

The five steps that will increase your chances for having successful Big Data initiatives are:

  1. Ensuring ongoing Senior Level Sponsorship
  2. Gaining and maintaining organizational consensus
  3. Taking an Enterprise wide perspective
  4. Implementing a rigorous data governance process
  5. Obtaining repeatable and measurable impact

It would take too much space to discuss each of these steps in detail but I will offer specific points for each one.

Ensuring ongoing Senior Level Sponsorship – like any important initiative, the organization needs to understand that the Big Data initiative underway is a high priority for the organization.  This message needs to be continually reinforced and tied to the expected value it holds for the company.

Gaining and maintaining organizational consensus – recognizing the significant financial potential of making fact based decisions using Big Data insights can be very motivating.  However, nothing can kill the initiative faster than lack of buy-in to the results from those organizations not involved from the beginning.  Yes, it takes more time to gain consensus each step of the way but in the end you will cross the finish line faster.

Taking an Enterprise wide perspective – one of the biggest problems that companies face is the fact that so much of their data is held in “functional silos”  that are not easy to connect.  To be most effective, Big Data initiatives need to utilize methodologies and technologies that allow for data from disparate systems to “play well together”.

Implementing a rigorous data governance process – if the organization does not have confidence that the way the Big Data is being organized, validated and used consistently over time, you are basically wasting your time.

Chart_BarObtaining repeatable and measurable impact – people like to get on the bandwagon of success.  Celebrate and make visible the early wins from your Big Data initiative.  In addition, track the performance gains over time to continue to reinforce to the organization the value of fact based decisions using insights from Big Data.

Following these five steps will help ensure the success of your Big Data initiative.  We would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.
All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

The Journey – Understanding The Path Of Adoption

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

 

The Journey – Understanding The Path Of Adoption

I recently facilitated the Big Data track for the EyeForTransport (EFT) Conference last month. As part of that conference, I emphasized the need for Big Data initiatives to be very intentional in their focus and execution. I also outlined three main success drivers: (1) recognizing that the road to success is a journey, (2) following 5 steps that increase the chances of success and (3) using other company case studies and their financial wins to build organizational momentum. This posting will address the first point.

There are three stages of adoption for business users to master Big Data. It is important to recognize this fact very early in the process. I often have conversations with customers who feel that they need to focus on getting the most out of their Big Data initiative as quickly as possible. This mindset can be detrimental. It can set expectations that later do not materialize and therefore the overall effort loses credibility. However, the smart approach is to establish that the company will incrementally build on Big Data opportunities with each stage in the journey providing significant value.

Let’s elaborate. One of the initial benefits of mastering Big Data is to provide operational insights that you just could not get before. Said another way, “discovering what you don’t know.” This is why it is so important to focus first stage activities on intentionally enabling business user to learn as much as they can through discovery. Using these insights to make informed decisions yields more effective strategies which of course builds organizational support for your Big Data initiative.

Knowing that you will continue to have these insights will naturally question if certain business processes could be modified to continually take advantage of this new knowledge. This provides additional opportunities to improve company performance. Over time, questions will begin to surface on the “go to market” approach for running the business which will drive innovation. All three phases offer significant value and continue to build internal momentum.

Blog009_3StagesOfAdoption

Mastering Big Data is a journey. Recognizing that point and continually reinforcing this message to your organization is essential. We would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments.

All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.

Designing Solutions for Business Users NOT Data Scientists

Richard Sharpe Analytics & Big Data

Designing Solutions for Business Users NOT Data Scientists

Big Data Analytics

There are a lot of opinions with regard to how insights should be gained or “mined” out of Big Data.  Clearly, no one has all of the answers today.  However a popular position is that companies will need to hire a team of data scientists to actually derive insights from Big Data.  I take a fundamentally different position on this for a number of reasons but the main headline is that effective solution that use Big Data need to be designed for the business users, not data scientists.

To make the point, let me take us back to my childhood years when we would play the “whisper” game.   We would line-up side by side, someone would have a phrase or saying in mind and they would whisper it into the ear of the person next to them.  The process would continue until the last person would have the phrase whispered to them and then they would say it out loud to the entire group.  How often do you think the original phrase matched the one that was announced to the group?

The same is true for making Big Data actionable. One approach is to hire data scientists to begin to organize data and to use various data manipulation and evaluation techniques to look for patterns and insights. These discoveries can then be provided to business users for review and possible use.  This may work well for some enterprises but having people who do not have the business knowledge try and discover these relevant insights seems problematic.

I recently ran the Big Data Track for the EyeForTransport (EFT) Conference in Chicago.  As part of that conference, I emphasized the need for Big Data initiatives to be very intentional in their focus and execution.  In future postings, I will elaborate on the three main points for the framework for driving success in using Big Data.  But the purpose of this posting is to emphasize that effective solutions using Big Data should be intentionally designed with the Business User’s needs in mind.

Big Data and Advanced Analytics are converging at a rapid pace.  Putting these solutions in the hands of Business Users will drive insights that drive intentionable performance improvements.

We would appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments. 
All the best, Richard

Richard Sharpe

Richard Sharpe is CEO of Competitive Insights, LLC (CI), a founding officer of the American Logistics Aid Network(ALAN) and designated by DC Velocityas a Rainmaker in the industry. For the last 25 years, Richard has been passionate about driving business value through the adoption of process and technology innovations. His current focus is to support CI’s mission to enable companies to gain maximum value through specific, precise and actionable insights across the organization for smarter growth. CI delivers Enterprise Profit Insights (EPI) solutions that enable cross-functional users to increase and protect profitability. Prior to his current role, Richard was President of CAPS Logistics, the forerunner of supply chain optimization. Richard is a frequent speaker at national conferences and leading academic institutions. His current focus is to challenge executives to improve their company’s competitive position by turning enterprise wide data from a liability to an asset through the use of applied business analytics.