Competing on Analytics - Book Review

DM Review just published a shorter version of my book review for Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning by Tom Davenport. You can read the original review here, buy the book here and comment about the review here!

Technorati Tags: analytic application, competing on analytics, predictive analytics, DM Review, Tom Davenport

Comments

[Charlie Pearlman]

hi james -
just read your book review -
and i think i agree with you -

throughout my experience (at fortune 100 companies), i find that there are very talented and intelligent business folks who are not, and will never be, hands-on analytically - and thinking that they ever will be is naive - there are also folks who are analytically inclined (aka data geeks) who do not have the skills or perspective to run businesses (and rarely take the time and initiative to truly understand their data, but that’s another topic for discussion) -

there needs to be a go-between - a hybrid - who can speak to data, business and analytical issues – so data and analytics can be applied intelligently to their best advantage - - -

this is not a technical problem, it is an organizational issue – and until it is recognized, the effectiveness of this solution will go unrealized – which is unfortunate because it’s a relatively small cost in the scheme of things – it’s sort of like having a hospital with state of the art equipment, drugs and technicians and lots of patients and hoping they’ll all get cured without having physicians to coordinate the health care applications -

folks who are analytically capable think that anyone who is intelligent should also be analytically capable (defining intelligence very narrowly and not recognizing other forms of intelligence that are critical to business success) - folks who are intelligent, but not data analytically inclined are loathe to admit this (many times to themselves, much less others) and fail to realize that this hybrid solution could help them tremendously in actually using data and analytics more effectively in running a business- they feel that the technicians should also now how to apply the technology to their business challenges (which are obvious to them, but not so to the technicians)

i am sure you are quite familiar with this at fair isaac, where you employ go-betweens (consultants) to work with business clients and your internal technical people - so the fact that this position is missing in most corporations internally, is actually quite surprising when you think of it - .

i wrote about this not too long ago in regard to analytical marketing -
* Creating Value-Added Research and Analysis through Analytical Marketing, Part 2
http://www.dmreview.com/article_sub.cfm?articleID=1068731

comments are welcome -