I read a fairly provocative article by MIT's Michael Schrage on Why your Analytics are failing you in the HBR Blog.
I totally agree with Scharage's perspective in the article. Today, there is a hyper-sensitivity & hyper-activity in enterprises about analytics and putting it to use quickly for competitive advantage. Jargons like Big data, predictive models, propensity scores and customer life time value are used loosely. My prognosis is that, this is leading to a kind of an "Analytics Bubble" just like the " Internet Bubble" of the early 2000s.
What's is critical in companies is the need to spend time on how to align structure, behaviour, incentives and right measurements to ensure analytics is made to count for business impact. What I find most difficult in companies is aligning behaviour and management of systems & processes to make this happen. No amount of more sophisticated tools and more data can help here.
What is needed is "mindfulness" amongst employees on the importance of making it happen. A lot time needs to be spent on conversation amongst departments, collaboration between teams, recognising individuals within teams who are early adopters of the analytics value on the ground, simplifying the execution blue print to make customer value and experience count every day amongst marketing, sales, customer service and operation teams.
Also, what CXOs need to understand is that behaviour from people is the most diffiuclt to change and transform. That's where patience & resolve is needed. There is a need to allocate budgets and time for the same.
We need to remember analytics begins with a few diagonstics and provides some prescriptions. The larger business impact will happen, only if the prescriptions is followed by the patients regularly - day-in and day-out.
The need to get the organization culture right is as important as the resources, tools and techniques!