Planning Analytics

Get Your Business Intelligence on Top and Stay There!

February 12, 2016 by pabadmin

Today’s data-driven companies have a competitive edge over their peers. How? They are generating breakthrough insights by bringing together all of their structured and unstructured data and analyzing it together – all at once.

Planning analytics is the key to unlocking the insights from your customer and patient behavior data – structured and unstructured – because you can combine, integrate and analyze all of your data at once to generate the insights needed to drive customer acquisition and sustain loyalty.

For example, you can use insights about the customer acquisition journey to design campaigns that improve conversion rates. You can also identify points of failure along the customer acquisition path – or the behavior of customers at risk of churn to proactively intervene and prevent losses.

And you can better understand high-value customer behavior beyond profile segmentation (for example, what other companies they shop from, so you can make your engagement content even more targeted).

Why? Did something unexpectedly happen to adversely impact the outcomes of their decisions?

If so, what was missing from the analysis and underlying assumptions? Could they have avoided some of these unsuccessful investments?

When planning the strategic direction of the business, organizations, like yours, strive to create returns that will satisfy (even delight) stakeholders. To the extent that you know the future to be uncertain, the measurement and impact of this uncertainty must be captured in your strategic planning process. Know what you don’t know and build from that base.

Hands-on experience (guided by experts in early go-rounds) helps people grow accustomed to using data and specifically big data. That builds confidence and, over time, can increase the scale and scope of data-informed problem solving and decision support.

Talk with us about your planning analytics objectives, current processes and needs. We’ll impartially show you how to get on the path to where you want to take your organization.

We’ll give you insights into trends, measure progress toward a set of quantitative goals, flag shifts in your markets or financial operations and even lift your customer experiences to a higher level. Call us to start a neutral and friendly conversation. 512-478-3848

Planning Analytics in 2016

February 2, 2016 by pabadmin

These pics tell stories.

You know you’re just overwhelmed! 2015 year-end reporting and presentations that bring all of their accompanying stresses. And then getting up on top of your promontory to look at where your prospects are going, what your customers and stakeholders want and need and how to leverage on that huge and variable investment you continue to make in human assets. Fun?

What we offer here as actionable visual models and tools are focused on H R and the roles of big data in human asset management ranging from recruitment and productivity to retention and replacement costs. Here’s a thought…grind through want you think you need to lead from a position of strong business intelligence and simultaneously be willing to experiment with your data and try some new things to get insights you might miss.

We start by borrowing an Infographic on the Four Vs of Big Data. This is a good encapsulation. Perhaps you put it on your launch page so you see it daily. IBM is the source.

And then on to a simpler, but very powerful step chart of where H R is any particular days of the week in any one of an array of organizations. And please make the connection that you could just as easily change the H R Analytics Maturity Model to the Corporate Business Intelligence Maturity Model.

Planning analytics in 2016 is a really big deal. And don’t forget the security perspective.

Do you need more tools to get your data into a visual storytelling format? Take a look at the Stanford University tool; http://vis.stanford.edu/wrangler/ Or talk to us before you commit your valuable assets.

We can get you off to a hot, fast start in 2016 to enhance your BI priorities and capabilities.

Some related reading that you may find useful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workforce_planning

http://hitconsultant.net/2015/10/27/dells-mandi-bishop-challenges-data-analytics-healthcare/

Taking Steps To Become A “Data Business”

December 7, 2015 by pabadmin

This is a classic and classy piece published in the Deloitte University Press series last year.

Here is an excerpt you can use to check your action list and see where you are in becoming a new-age business adaptation – ready and able to compete by knowing who your prospects are, how they become customers and then how you create and deliver an exceptional and remarkable customer experience. The full article is here: http://dupress.com/articles/steps-to-data-analytics-business

Step one is to envision what your offering will be. This step applies no matter what business you’ve been focused on in the past. You may have previously sold drugs (I mean the legal kind), banking transactions, mobile phones, cars and trucks, or watches, but now you could be selling data, analytics, and insights around those offerings as well.
Step two is to think about the legal implications of your offering. You’ve probably already begun to collect some data that your existing products and services spew out as exhaust.
Step three is to ensure that you can create your new data product or service from an operational standpoint. This is the same type of activity that your organization has been doing for a while to support internally oriented applications. Companies wishing to do data products have to ensure that they collected or acquired the right data over time, that it was cleaned and integrated, and that analysis tools are able to give customers the insights they need around the data.
Step four is to try out a business model for your data product or service. Who knows for sure whether customers will be willing to pay for your new product by itself, or whether you will have to bundle it in with existing offerings?

Who knows which data or insights they will value most? Who knows how much you can charge? Nobody really knows these things, which is why you need to begin a series of iterative activities to find out.

We can help you mobilize and evaluate your data product options, monitor your predictive trends, measure progress toward a set of quantitative goals, flag shifts in your markets or financial operations and even lift your customer experiences to a higher level.

Call us to start a neutral and friendly conversation that can enhance your data management investment so you can make savvy asset management decisions. 512-478-3848

Can You Transform Effectively?

October 27, 2015 by pabadmin

This is the good and the bad. Can you transform effectively?

You will likely have similar mixed feelings that I have when you drill down into these McKinsey Global Institute observations earlier this year about getting a big impact from big data.

It’s not just the lost potential and the opportunity costs, it’s also the incredibly narrow deployment of efforts under the corporate umbrella that make us wonder about the quality of a senior C-level team’s decisions. Now that’s scary.

Take two minutes and absorb a few of these salient points . . . and then choose your planning analytics or business intelligence path to greater success.

MGI’s analysts caught many people’s attention when they estimated that retailers exploiting data analytics at scale across their organizations could increase their operating margins by more than 60 percent and that the US healthcare sector could reduce costs by 8 percent through data-analytics efficiency and quality improvements.
For most legacy companies, data-analytics success has been limited to a few tests or to narrow slices of the business.
Very few have achieved what you would call “big impact through big data,” or impact at scale.
When asked what degree of revenue or cost improvement they had achieved through the use of these techniques, three-quarters said it was less than 1 percent.
Capturing the potential of data analytics requires the building blocks of any good strategic transformation: it starts with a plan, demands the creation of new senior-management capacity to really focus on data, and, perhaps most important, addresses the cultural and skill-building challenges needed for the front line (not just the analytics team) to embrace the change.

We want and need to focus on what to do when you’re in the midst of that transformation and facing the inevitable challenges to realizing large-scale benefits.

For example, management teams frequently don’t see enough immediate financial impact to justify additional investments.

Frontline managers lack understanding and confidence in the analytics and hesitate to employ it.

Existing organizational processes are unable to accommodate advancements in analytics and automation, often because protocols for decision making require multiple levels of approval.

Do you see why you need a strategic partner that is an extension of your team?

We can help you monitor your predictive HR trends, measure progress toward a set of quantitative goals or flag shifts in your markets or financial operations. Call us to start a conversation that can enhance your data management investment while you make savvy asset management decisions. 512 478 3848.

Using Planning Analytics to Develop Millennials

October 13, 2015 by pabadmin

One of the aspects of data management that has gotten only rare attention in even our recent past is the need to develop leadership in the millennials who have been brought on the team early in their careers as special skills sets to meet the immediate IT, planning and analysis needs of your team. There’s work to do and most of the time the recruitment process focuses on matching the position requirements with the known abilities this generation of employees bring to the table.

But the importance of succession planning, using analytics and staffing projections, has quickly risen in the daily concerns of corporate leaders. For example;

Earlier this year Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends 2015 found that developing millennials rated as one of the top challenges by 86% of surveyed HR and business leaders, and it is especially challenging in developing millennial leaders. In the next 5 years, millennials will make up half of the US workforce. Surveys indicate two thirds of this growing talent pool plan to leave their organizations within the next 3 years.

Engaging and retaining high potential millennials in particular is a high priority to ensure a pipeline of leaders to drive future company growth.

Here is a specific healthcare industry example/challenge; Baptist Health System, based in Jacksonville, Florida, is a network of five hospitals, affiliated with 45 primary care offices located throughout Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia. Chief Learning Officer Justin Lombardo explains they look for leadership candidates with “1) consistency in action, values and mission 2) the ability to think critically about situations and contribute thoughtfully to discussions and 3) dedication to the work of the team.” In most industries and healthcare in particular, “leadership in the future is a team sport.” Baptist Health provides challenging stretch assignments emphasizing the importance of collaboration and building strong networks to achieve results.

Millennials represent a growing segment of the workforce. Their distinct preferences, passions and expectations regarding work life and aspirations toward leadership roles appear to differ from previous generations. While Boomers were taught to be patient, persistent, and loyal and in return, receive rewards for their effort over time, high potential millennials highlight other traits.

Each C-level leadership team has a unique and experienced outlook for what mix of talent and skills will shape their future success. So, obviously, the development programs for upwardly mobile employees will be tailored to their culture and marketplace strengths. At the same time, they are recognizing that using god, relevant data about their human assets is crucial to momentum. And that’s where predictive data analytics gives you and edge.

So . . . where to you get the proven help and talent you need to get leadership development to the front of the bus?

Management Information Analysis’ teams help our clients solve problems they were unable to tackle before. Like managing you millennial human assets. We create and deliver solutions tailored to your internal and external data management needs to help cut through the complexity of multiple business unit operations and key market factors to gain insight into value creation at a granular level. And that delivers measurable value.

We can help you monitor your predictive HR trends, measure progress toward a quantitative goal or flag shifts in your labor market or financial operations. Call us to start a conversation that can enhance your data management investment while you make savvy human resource and asset management decisions. 512 478 3848.

Greater Clarity and Confidence in Decision Making

October 12, 2015 by pabadmin

We help clients sift through the complexity of strategic planning to understand where the real uncertainties lie. Uncovering them is a strong step in eliminating mis-direction that comes from looking at the wrong data. The scope of our expertise and the rigor of the processes applied by our planning analytics experts equip leaders to build a clearer and more detailed picture of their world, make better-informed and more robust decisions, and introduce greater transparency into direction setting.

How We Help Clients

Our approach supplies clients with the crucial fact base reports they need to address the big strategic questions. How and where can I grow? What actions can I take to increase value? How is my industry being shaped by global forces?

Management Information Analysis’ teams help clients solve problems they were unable to tackle before. We create and deliver solutions tailored to your internal and external data management needs to help cut through the complexity of multiple business unit operations and key market factors to gain insight into value creation at a granular level.

Validation From One of Our Success Stories

This client came to us with a totally manual process and a system that was designed for another type of business. They started with distribution lists of products from the manufacturers. The sales force would present these products to the retailers, place orders (paper process) which they entered via a log and updated status along the way on each product. Pending sales and delivery reconciliation were falling through the cracks. Can you spell “customer relations, sales blockages and cost management problems?”

The Results – Reduced staff and retailer complaints and dramatically increased sales (confidential).

We can help you monitor trends, measure progress toward a quantitative goal or flag shifts in your market or financial operations. Call us to start a conversation that can enhance your data management investment while you make savvy human resource and asset management decisions. 512 478 3848.

Data Tools Lead to Smart Healthcare Expansion

September 17, 2015 by pabadmin

Retailers for many years have used geo-analytics—visualization or mapping tools integrating sophisticated geographical and marketing data—to decide where to open stores and restaurants. Healthcare is starting to go that way, too.

Dr. Este Geraghty, chief medical officer for Redlands, Calif.-based Esri, a mapping technology company, said health organizations generally have similar data needs to those of retailers, including population demographics, population density and market potential.

But they may make very different choices based on that data when siting a clinic for low-income people versus picking a spot for a high-end clothing store, for instance. “The data are much the same, but the perspective is going to be totally different,” she said.

Healthcare organizations need to do their own homework, analyzing their customers from data extracted from electronic health records (EHRs) and health insurance claims data to see what kinds of services potential healthcare customers use, where they live and what types of coverage they have. These data can be combined with market data, traffic pattern information and retail location maps.

Hospitals typically have relied on inpatient data for planning. But the shift to outpatient care has created a gap in the availability of useful data because outpatient facilities often don’t have to report data to state agencies.

Still, the availability of outpatient data is improving as some states and healthcare analytics firms are collecting and analyzing it. The emphasis on data analysis and population health management in the Affordable Care Act is leading to improved data access to plan services and facilities and to help healthcare organizations decide whether to buy existing medical practices or build new ones. The trick is to take information generated by the healthcare system itself and merge that with public data sets such as census statistics on population density and income levels.

Additional data on disease rates, crime statistics or air quality can be added, along with locations of farmers markets, gyms and parks. The healthcare industry is at least 15 years behind the curve set by the retail, logistics and energy industries.

Our custom application development expertise allows our analysts to mix and match data sets as needed. We can blend internal with external data sources to establish historical trends and project need and demand, which are the backbone of any feasibility study.

Additionally, we can help you monitor trends, measure progress toward a quantitative goal or flag shifts in your market or operations. Take a look at one of our healthcare success stories. And then call us to start a conversation that can enhance your data management investment while you make savvy delivery location decisions.

Where Have You Been and Where Are You Going With Your Planning Analytics Tools?

July 21, 2015 by pabadmin

If you have not seen this InformationWeek article, it delivers a nice, concise set of highlighted findings from the report. You may find it useful to see movements and evolving trends. It might even give you both a compass bearing and the opportunity to look at how you and your team are progressing as you crank up and evaluate the data you choose to access.

Respondent breakdown: 35% have 5,000 or more employees; 25% have more than 10,000. Manufacturing, financial services, government, education, and healthcare are well-represented; and 45% are IT director/manager, IT executive management (C-level/VP) level or non-IT executive managers.

If you would like a friendly and neutral needs analysis of where you can maximize your planning analytics ROI, just shout out and we can be your listening post.

Get the Analytics Your Data Deserves

July 21, 2015 by pabadmin

Analytics is something that’s easy to put off. When you’re actively building a company and trying to figure out your value proposition, collecting and splicing data can seem non-critical or premature. But then, all of a sudden, you hit a point where things get complex, you need to understand your customers much better, and you have lots of unusable data because you captured it the wrong way — or didn’t capture it at all.

As soon as your company has users, you need to set up a solid analytics framework. It’s not a waste of time or money.

“Many companies send data off to a service to store it, but once it’s stored, it’s no longer accessible in the same form; it would require engineering to get it back,” according to Ben Porterfield, a Co-founder and VP Engineering at Looker. “Too much of this is event data — metrics showing what happened with your site or product. This is super valuable stuff. When you combine event data with your operational transactions in a database, you learn which events triggered conversions.

The value of combining your operational data with your event data is that you get to understand your user’s journey through your product or service — there are few things more important.”

Your impulse might be to save your resources and have your existing engineers cobble together an in-house solution that will do the job, tracking and storing only a sparse set of the most essential metrics. Porterfield has seen a number of companies cave to this temptation and it doesn’t end well.

It’s well worth the time and money to find proven resources that have stability and support from the outset. Every time data is hard to access or understand, your business is falling further behind because people are making slower decisions.

If you would like a friendly and neutral needs analysis of where you can maximize your planning analytics and big data management ROI, just shout out and we can be your listening post.

Data Analytics Require Careful Preparation

April 2, 2015 by pabadmin

Big data is growing bigger every day, but it’s still a very new trend for the business and IT worlds. Organizations are working to develop new ways of taking advantage of terabytes of available data, and in many cases it’s too early to determine which are the most effective methods. One aspect whose importance is often overlooked but that is a necessary part of any successful analytics project is data preparation.

Data can be hard to analyze if it is still raw and unpolished, especially when it comes from different sources, and certainly not all information that is available is necessarily useful. Attempting to soldier on without cleaning data up first will inevitably produce skewered and inaccurate results. In the field of computer science, the saying “garbage in, garbage out” reflects the inability of automated processes to separate the wheat from the chaff.

On any given analytics project, companies can use information generated specifically for that purpose or from automated sources. The data can come in any number of file formats or it may even be in physical files or come from outdated legacy systems. A comprehensive ETL architecture can comb all those sources, select only the relevant data and bring it together in a single destination, where it can be easily analyzed.

Management Information Analysis‘ ETL Plus* service allows for each part of the process to be customized to meet the specific requirements of each organization and project. We can transform vital information from very disparate sources and ensure that it is primed for analysis by eliminating duplicate and irrelevant data.