Business analytics a certain something

Business Analytics – A Certain Something

Chris Gabriel, VP of Solutions Management at Logicalis Group, explores the world of ‘Big Data’, to look at the
impact of ‘internet time’ on decision-making and the increasingly central role of business analytics in driving long
term competitiveness.

Every organisation has something inside them that defines its identity. That something might be the key to
exploiting or mitigating any one of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For every executive,
the question is ‘what is that something?’ But asking the question is the easy bit…

Knowing where and how to find the answers is now stimulating the minds and wallets of the IT industry – the
importance of analytics is evidenced by the strategies and investments of some of the world’s biggest IT players.
For example, last year HP paid $12billion dollars for a UK analytics business whose revenues were less than a
$1billion, a massive multiple and one that shocked the investor community.

These investments and strategies are driven by the emergence of ‘Big Data’. That is, if you are an average mid-
sized organisation you’re likely to have around 20 Terabytes of live data storage capacity data in total. But all that
data is barely being put to use – some estimates suggest that 90% of all information in an organisation lies
unused once 90 days have elapsed since its creation.

So how did you create all that data in the first place? The IDC ‘digital universe’ study suggests that in 2011 the
amount of digital information created and replicated will be over 1.8 zettabytes, or 1.8 trillion gigabytes. In that
same study, IDC postulates that since 2005, you, the corporate or public sector ICT user has spent over $4trillion
on buying ‘more’ technology to expand the digital universe to where it is today. All those emails, spreadsheets
and web transactions build up – you’re starting to get ‘big data’.

But when does plain old data become ‘big data’? As ever, the definition is something of a moveable feast, but it’s
fair to say that , if the amount of data and data sources you now have is greater than the ability of the applications
you have to make sense of it, you have a ‘big data’ challenge.

How then do you make sense of it, and do you really need to? The second part of that question is the easy bit –
it’s all about ‘mission critical’ decision-making. By way of an analogy, in the 1970s, John Boyd, United States Air
Force Colonel described what he believed was the process that either won or lost pilots precious seconds of
differentiation in a combat situation; those who could act quickest won most. The OODA loop was born:

 Observe: collect as much situational data as possible
 Orientate: analyse that data to form a coherent view
 Decide: use that coherent view to decide on a course of action
 Act: enable your organisation to act as effectively as possible

That basic approach to data analysis still holds true, but trying to analyse a new world of big data with old tools
diminishes the value of that data – and leaves those who can observe, orientate, decide and act faster in a better
competitive position.

Visit Logicalis’ Blog www.cxounplugged.com 1

That ability to rapidly understand and act is the key. Organisations of all persuasions need to act quickly; a sales
team needs to know when prospects are at their warmest, humanitarian NGOs compete aggressively to be the
first at a disaster scene, automated trading systems need to know the signals that indicate whether to buy or sell
a stock, crime prevention forces need to understand where and when crimes are most likely to occur and so on.
As ever, the organisation that can act quickest wins, and the benefit of using business analytics is speed.

Analytics is taking hold today because a spreadsheet simply doesn’t cut it in today’s business world. When the
world of commerce was conducted in slow motion, the old real-time, knowing how your customers behaved last
month or last quarter was fast enough – Now the world is done in ‘internet-time’ knowing what your customers did
last quarter is akin to having a doctorate in ancient history.

In an IBM 2011 study of Chief Marketing Officers (CMO), From Stretched to Strengthened, data explosion was
ranked as the number one marketing challenge. One CMO commented, “We are drowning in data.” Meanwhile,
CEOs rated customer intimacy as their number one priority – over 88% believed that getting close to customers
would make their organisations more successful. As the CEO of a national taxation office said in the report, “Our
products need to anticipate rather than respond to a request.”

There’s a real indication of where analytics is heading in there. The true holy grail of analytics is to move from
analysing the past to predicting the future and, with the vast amount of digital data that you have, every
organisation has the opportunity to learn far more about their futures. That development is already a reality in
many areas of our lives – data analytics is used to predict everything from the likelihood that we will default on a
loan, to the risks of us developing heart disease.

The key message for CXOs right now is, do not ignore the data you already have or you risk being left behind. If
you have all this data and you don’t reuse it and reuse it for the benefit of your organisation then WHY did you
create it in the first place? To tap into the current concern over climate change, did your organisation really power
those computers and storage arrays for the last decade to create and collect data that your business now leaves
standing idle? What a waste!

Of course, the ‘right’ analytics solution depends on the nature of your organisation your customers and the
business imperatives that will define your success in the coming years. Ask yourself is ‘what do we want to use
data for?’, and then find the tools you need to make that data work for you. In general, analytics tools are split
into two solutions areas:

 Those that consolidate existing information so companies can ask the ‘why’ question – such as IBM Cognos.
 Tools that combine predictive analytics and business rules to optimise and automate the millions of small
decisions made every day – such as IBM SPSS.

The reality is that business analytics is coming, whether we like it or not. Businesses have to start down the road
to analytics because customers, your consumers, or your citizens will increasingly demand it. As a result, over
the next few years, business analytics will cease to be an ‘executive indulgence’. It will be a ‘must have’ and the
organisations that win will be those which use analytics intelligently – to find out what that ‘certain something’ is.


About Chris Gabriel
VP of Solutions Management, Logicalis Group
Chris joined Logicalis UK in January 2006 to lead the business' focus on defining and marketing its core ‘go to
market’ solutions propositions.

With 20 years of experience in the ICT industry, Chris has spent his career working within both systems
integration organisations and IT vendors (Logicalis, 2e2, SCC, Cabletron Systems), and has worked for the last
10 years in product marketing and market roles in the UK, Europe and United States.

After working as part of the UK management team for the last 3 years as UK Marketing and Solutions Director,
Chris is now VP of Solutions Management at Logicalis Group, where he is responsible for building a common
international solutions and services strategy.


Business analytics a certain something

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (6)

Similar to Business analytics a certain something (20)

More from Logicalis (16)

Recently uploaded (20)

Business analytics a certain something