Data science and data driven decision making are becoming increasingly vital to businesses interested in new competitive advantage. Analytics, business intelligence applications and dashboards are bridging the gap between business user and IT professional. Creating an environment of collaboration is the goal, but for a while now the divide has kept IT in front a screen and business users in the office. Realizing the value of congruence between the two parties, Procter and Gamble CEO Bob McDonald refers to the impending ‘cultural revolution’ set to occur within enterprises who embrace analytics and data driven business processes.
Mr. McDonald’s sights are set on digitizing the entirety of the multi-billion dollar corporations business processes. This move is set to take data driven enterprise analytics to the next level. Digitizing traditional paper based operations allows for analytics for business processes to be conducted in real-time. Maintaining data’s importance as a center piece to all business decisions will drive efficiency and insightful perspective. After embracing analytics and data driven processes, P&G saved close to $250 million by pinpointing excessive inventory that would have otherwise been hidden.
Through my own work in IT consultancy, our team collaborated with the New York Road Runners to digitize their race records as well as provide easy ways for runners and customers to connect with the information they needed at a moment’s notice. With registration information spanning multiple countries and charity information regarding donations and sponsors, NYRR had its hands full. Legacy systems used for previous registration and runner data logistics still held value. After digitizing the data and improving the process for future data collection through NYRR.org, the organization was able to implement an effective IT solution that empowered the enterprise as well as runners and customers.
As dashboards and analytics become more popular with business users, the next stage of advancements are already on the horizon. Business intelligence applications with embedded data science capabilities possess huge potential when it comes to integrating these solutions with business processes. Instead of relying on hunches and gut instinct, data insights provide a clearer picture of the task at hand. Functions such as predictive analytics in the hands of a business user can serve to forecast pricing, marketing strategies, labor optimization and more. New applications with embedded data science functions for business users are the next step.
A main catalyst for progress in the area of business intelligence and data science comes from a vertical industry focus by IT, systems integrators and software developers. One size does not fit all in terms of business applications. Each industry and even individual enterprises within those industries have different ecosystems, organizational characteristics and work environments to consider. As business and IT converge, powerful new enterprise applications will harness data and improve processes.
