Too much of a good thing

The challenge

A major telecom provider became mired in too much data and not enough insight. Even a simple business question could take weeks or months to answer. The organization’s previous attempts to leverage big data had been costly and inefficient; they needed help getting started in a way that could be scaled to broader company-wide initiatives. The company’s leadership wanted to improve decision making by using big data and advanced analytics in an efficient, cost-effective way.

Analytics capabilities were spread across the company—each business had its own data analysts and technologies. This disconnected organizational structure meant that data and insights were not shared across business units and many efforts were duplicated. The analysts, however, did have one thing in common: their biggest challenge was getting fast access to the big data and gaining business-relevant insights from it.

When analysts requested data from various internal sources and vendors, it arrived— sometimes weeks later— with inconsistent formats and missing data definitions. Time-consuming cleansing was needed before analysis could begin. A plethora of siloed tools and data environments made analysis tasks difficult to execute and share. With analytics-related expenses running into the millions—of which two-thirds was spent outside IT—leaders expected timely, reliable, and actionable insights for running the business. Something had to change.

How we helped

The company’s leaders recognized that insights gleaned from big data could help build competitive advantages and a more efficient cost structure. They asked for Deloitte’s support as their organization developed a pragmatic, repeatable way to streamline their bloated analytic processes and gain more value from their investment.

The organization’s project leaders started by aligning the company’s leadership under a common analytics vision. Rather than recommend a massive analytics project that would change how the entire company used big data and analytics, the team selected a small number of pilot projects that could demonstrate the potential value of the new analytics vision on a small scale. This approach was lower-risk and enabled the sharing of experience and knowledge that could be transferred to larger projects in the future.

Working with Deloitte, the company had the confidence to change its approach to big data and analytics.

Lasting results

The telecom’s business and IT leaders worked together to evaluate the company’s existing analytics capabilities, to crystalize the company’s analytics vision, and to identify the skills and technologies needed to achieve this vision. They identified a mix of business use cases to demonstrate how big data insights could drive revenue growth and reduce costs. Two pilot projects resulted in increased customer response rates to digital advertising and reduced IT storage costs. Additionally, the project team identified the core technologies and solutions the company needed for efficient big data analysis. Most importantly, the company is building a foundation on which to build a sustainable analytics program.