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:

Ensuring ongoing Senior Level Sponsorship
Gaining and maintaining organizational consensus
Taking an Enterprise wide perspective
Implementing a rigorous data governance process
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.

Obtaining 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 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.

on the RADAaR™ – September 2014

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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.

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

on the RADAaR™ – July 2014

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News: Competitive Insights Contributes to New Supply Chain Risk Management Standard

Atlanta, GA, July 23, 2014 – Competitive Insights, a leading provider of Integrated Business Planning (IBP) solutions, announces their participation in the development of a new standard to help organizations address operational risks in their supply chains, including risks to tangible and intangible assets. Among an advisory team of global, cross-disciplinary professionals and specialists, Richard Sharpe, CEO of Competitive Insights, and Tami Kitajima, Manager at Competitive Insights, served as Committee Members in the recent publication of ASIS International’s The Supply Chain Risk Management: A Compilation of Best Practices Standard (SCRM).

“I am glad that Competitive Insights supported the development of the ASIS Standard on Supply Chain Risk Management – A Compilation of Best Practices,” said Douglas Schoch, Vice President of Siemens Capital Company LLC. “Competitive Insights’ methodology on how to identify, mitigate and measure supply chain risk is actionable and provides a clear path to managing prioritized risks in order to protect operating profits.”

“The SCRM Standard will help practitioners anticipate, prevent, protect, mitigate, manage, respond, and recover from potentially undesirable and disruptive events, as well as identify opportunities,” stated in ASIS International’s press release. “However, the best strategy for addressing risk events will be determined by the organization’s context of operations, its risk appetite, and results of risk assessments. Adoption of this standard should build on rather than supplant existing specialized risk programs.”

Click here for complete ASIS International’s Press Release and link to Executive Summary

About Competitive Insights

Competitive Insights (CI) provides cloud based Integrated Business Planning (IBP) solutions to customers including some of the nation’s most recognizable brands. CI’s CI.RADAaR™ solution cleans and processes customers’ transactional data from multiple sources to support cross-functional, fact-based decisions. Actionable decisions support the decrease of operating costs, maximization of profits, mitigation of operating risks and minimization of carbon emissions. This information is further used by cross functional teams of supply chain, sales, finance and marketing business users to make and monitor strategic decisions for specific segments of the business. For more information please visit: http://www.ci-advantage.com

Designing Solutions for Business Users NOT Data Scientists

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

on the RADAaR™ – June 2014

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join us

EyeForTransport Chief Supply Chain Officer and 3PL Summit
Chicago, Illinois June 11-13, 2014 schedule a meeting and/or demo

Richard Sharpe, CEO of Competitive Insights, will lead the track on Analytics in Supply Chain: Innovation through Modeling and Analytics. The 3PL Summit is North America’s largest and most high-level gathering of logistics executives. With 600 attendees, it brings together the leading thinkers and practitioners in logistics and supply chain to network, learn, debate challenges, discuss trends and share ideas.

Special discount code is CI300 and will get delegates $300 off passes. They can sign up here

on the RADAaR™ – May 2014

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Turning Big Data From A Liability To An Asset – Point 4: Creating Repeatable and Measurable Impact

This posting is the final in a series focused on turning Big Data from a liability to an asset. Earlier in the series, I have discussed the importance of gaining Organizational Consensus, Taking An Enterprise Wide Approach and the need to have effective Data Governance in addressing effective ways to get value from your Big Data initiative. I hope these areas of focus have been helpful. Today, we will focus on Creating Repeatable and Measurable Impact.

To effectively tackle Big Data, the strategy must be intentional with regard to the business need that the effort will support. All too often I hear someone suggest that the way to address Big Data is to hire a few very smart data scientist, put them in a room with access to enormous amounts of data and see what they can discover. I totally disagree with this approach. Sure, they may find interesting business patterns or correlations but deriving financial value from the effort may be difficult. Instead, a far better strategy is to focus your Big Data initiative on a specific business strategy(s) where the insights gained from Big Data can be used to make actionable decisions that can be tracked with regard to a measurable improvement in the business meeting its objectives.

Tackling Big Data requires the investment of time and resources. Like any business investment, the initial justification for tackling Big Data needs to be financially justified, but getting value from Big Data in an intentional way is not a one-time event. It needs to continue to provide value that can be measured in meaningful ways to the organization. Without that, it is purely a waste in time.

So the question is how. Measuring value can be a tricky task but it cannot be ignored and pushed out to be addressed “after the fact”. Like any measurement, the first step is to verify you have a Baseline “value” for performance that should be defined and cross functionally agreed upon. It is also important that the way you calculate the measurement has been scrutinized and validated, so that it will not be questioned later by the “Doubting Thomas” members of your organization. All of this should be done prior to taking action that is directly linked to the insights you gained from your Big Data initiative. Finally, it is key that the ongoing use of the measurement of value is consistently applied each time it is used.

These are all standard value measurement considerations but they are just as important for sustaining your Big Data initiative as they are for any other business investment.

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

News: Competitive Insights Named “Cool Vendor” by Gartner

Vendors selected for the “Cool Vendor” report are innovative, impactful and intriguing

Atlanta, GA, April 22, 2014 – Competitive Insights, a leading provider of Integrated Business Planning (IBP) solutions, announced it has been listed as a Cool Vendor in the “Cool Vendors in Supply Chain Management Applications, 2014”¹ report by Gartner, Inc.

CI is defining a new frontier in IBP solutions. CI’s solutions incorporate patented methodologies and technologies that transform large volumes of disparate transactional data (Big Data) into accurate and specific performance details (Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive and Prescriptive) across the enterprise. CI provides specific fact based details that uncover insights into a wide variety of performance measurements including specific Net Landed Cost To Serve (NLCTS) product and customer cost measurements and their associated true Net Landed Profit (NLP) contributions. In addition, CI’s solutions also allow customers to use the same IBP data to measure and manage prioritized supply chain operating risks.

“Gartner’s recognition of Competitive Insights is no surprise,” said Jim Hardy, Chief Supply Chain Officer of Under Armour. “The actionable performance insights they provide through their cloud based application CI.RADAaR™ is game changing. It will be the basis for how innovative companies compete in the future.”

“We are honored to be included in the Cool Vendors 2014 report by Gartner,” said Richard Sharpe, CEO of Competitive Insights. “We are committed to the advancement of Integrated Business Planning (IBP) solutions for our Customers. Solutions allow our Customers to make informed, fact based decisions based on current and precise performance information.”

For more information, please visit www.ci-advantage.com or contact [email protected].

About Competitive Insights

Disclaimer:

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

1 Gartner “Cool Vendors in Supply Chain Management Applications, 2014” by C. Dwight Klappich, Noha Tohamy, Christian Titze, Tim Payne, April 15, 2014.

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Creating A Success Framework – 5 Steps To Follow