Becoming an Insight Driven Organization

The true strength of analytics lies in its ability to help leaders make more informed, more effective and more intelligent business decisions. This is the value of becoming an IDO. By entrenching data, analysis and reasoning into the organization’s decision-making processes, IDOs turn analytics into a core capability while promoting a culture of data-driven decision-making. As a result, organizations embed analytics across the entire organization and gain access to the analytical insights they need to tackle complex business problems.

Too often, organizations struggle to realize tangible benefits from their analytics investments. That’s because it’s no longer enough to turn data into insight, you need the ability to turn insight into action.

This is the promise delivered by becoming an IDO—an organization that injects analytic insight into every decision it makes. By using data, statistical and quantitative analysis, and visualization tools and techniques, IDOs empower their people to use insights to change the way they do business.

To become an IDO, you need to address five essential building blocks

1. Strategy
2. People
3. Process
4. Data
5. Technology

This involves identifying a sponsor and setting up a governing body to align analytics activities across business units. It means extending your focus beyond technology and data to encompass strategy, people and process. And it hinges on engaging in short, sharp, agile pieces of work that create value quickly, without requiring big up-front investments.

The result? Beyond creating one source of the truth, you gain the ability to grow revenues, reduce costs, mitigate risk and compete more effectively.

Strategy

Setting strategy requires executive sponsors and champions to carefully define their analytics objectives, identify desired outputs and align the analytics journey with the organization’s broader goals, business plans and win strategy. Components include describing your vision, building a business case, committing to continuous improvement and gaining—and maintaining—key stakeholder support.

People

To become an IDO, organizations need to build an analytical culture as well as identify the champions and develop analytics talent. By marrying “red skills” (data scientists, technology architects and software developers) with “blue skills” (change managers, political navigators and senior executive influencers), IDOs build “purple teams”—those that combine statistical, data management and technological skills with communication, business acumen and political know-how to drive analytics success.

Process

Beyond capturing, certifying the accuracy of and distributing the right data, IDOs need processes to turn data into insight and to act upon that insight. This involves more than generating retrospective insight limited to siloed teams or functions. Instead, it enables prescriptive insights capable of guiding a company’s decision-making. To build this capacity, you need a solid governance framework and operating model, embedded measurement frameworks and a feedback mechanism.

Data

Rather than confining their analytics focus to internal structured data sources, IDOs tap external and unstructured data sources—including social channels and external data points that can enhance decision-making, risk analysis and scenario planning. In addressing their data requirements, IDOs also put well-designed information models into place, adopt a realistic approach to data quality, ensure regulatory compliance and carefully consider the ethical implications of how they use their data.

Technology

To build an effective analytics platform, you need a well-thought-out solution architecture, people with the requisite technical skills, a delivery model to disseminate insights across the organization and a structured approach for collaborating with your third-party technology partners.