Last week I spoke for IIA at Predictive Analytics World. Whereas I often speak to executives who aren’t yet persuaded of the virtues of analytics, at this gathering—which also included attendees of the Marketing Optimization Summit and Text Analytics World—that wasn’t the problem. I was preaching to the converted, who already undertake a wide variety of analytical initiatives in their organization. The problem becomes not how to get going with analytics, but how to “industrialize” them.
As analytics grow more popular and central to business strategies, there is also a need to produce analytical miracles repeatedly, reliably, and quickly. The old days in which an analyst could take his or her time to produce custom analytical solutions are almost gone; instead, groups of analysts need to have “analytical service lines” in place. Some organizations might refer to them as “analytical solutions.”
These are necessary not only because the customers of analytical groups within organizations need quick and reliable delivery of analytics, but also they need to be familiar with the possibilities for analytical work. A “menu” of services that can be provided with speed and reliable outcomes can be very useful to the consumers of analytics. Incidentally, external analytical consultants should also provide a similar menu of analytical service lines.
One of the best examples I have found of such service lines or solutions is at HP Global Analytics—the analytical shared services group of the giant computer company. This group, largely based in India, has created a set of repeatable and scalable analytical capabilities serving many different functions across HP. For marketing, for example, they offer market intelligence, customer targeting, marketing spend allocation, and pricing analytics. In sales they offer sales force allocations, pursuit and conversion optimization, compensation optimization, and sales performance reporting. The group also has offerings in customer service, supply chain management, and HR—19 solutions in total.
So what comprises an analytical service line? It should have the following attributes:
- You’ve done it before, ideally several times—and it’s achieved a good outcome;
- You have at least some sense of a process that is followed to produce the desired result;
- You either have data readily available for the analysis, or know where to find it;
- You know what the likely decision outcomes are for the analysis;
- You know who the likely customers are for this service within your organization or client;
- You have created some degree of marketing materials to describe this service and its benefits.
As with all analytical capabilities, you can’t assume that your customer will understand analytical jargon on the service line card. Just as a restaurant markets the items on its menu by creating appealing descriptions and training service personnel to describe them, the analytical offerings on the menu have to be marketed and sold too.
Creating a set of analytical service lines, and executing on them effectively, will go a long way toward scaling up analytics in your organization and delivering them efficiently. Some analysts may yearn for the one-off, ad hoc analytical approach, but most will probably appreciate the increased influence they are having on the business.
