Analytics: Key Trends

Soumendra Mohanty Global Lead, Information Management Accenture

In the near future, it will be quite common for business executives to ask their IT executives why did we not have this information prior to our decisions? The typical answer that we did not have such insight into data will no longer be acceptable. Thanks to analytics, we can harness the power of data to bridge the gap between abundant passive data and strategic and timely decisions. That said, simply extracting relevant data and applying methods and algorithms to derive insights is not enough. For long-term competitive advantage, companies will need to integrate analytics into their business rules and processes across their enterprise.

You may have heard some or all of your clients asking questions such as, how can we: Increase the value of existing investment and lower risk? Become more agile to sense and exploit opportunities? Obtain actionable insights from the ever-increasing data in our systems? Transform our data into asset? Dynamically re-allocate resources? Measure, manage and improve performance across our enterprise? Use analytics to meet our business objectives? Although analytics per se may not satisfy client needs in a holistic manner, it will go a long way in addressing the abovementioned concerns.

Until recently, it was not uncommon for decisions, at times very important ones, to be based on gut-feeling or intuition. With analytics, what has changed rapidly in recent years is the ability of business executives to make timely decisions based on the availability of accurate facts.

Data, data and more data

Pick up any research report on data and you will notice that they all focus on one aspect quite consistentlythe phenomenal growth in the volume of data, especially unstructured data. Increasingly, companies are using analytics tools to make business sense of data. For many companies, it is already serving as a key source of competitive, market and commercial insight.

Business Drivers of Analytics

There was a time when the usual complaint was about lack of data or inability to access it. Today, there is no dearth of data; in fact, there is too much of itthanks to the many sophisticated data storage and processing technologies. The need to interpret data has always been around, given that the mere presence of data does not make it significant or insignificant. This business need has increased the significance of descriptive (what is happening or happened) and predictive analytics (what will happen if certain trends continue and what may be the best course of action).

Why Analytics?
Analytics is the process of using quantitative methods to derive actionable insights and outcomes from data. In this sense, analytics has been around for several years in many forms including, though not limited to, Business Intelligence (BI), Executive Information Systems (EIS), Decision Support Systems (DSS) and Information Management. However, of late it has come to form an important component of a companys competitive strategy and taken center stage.

From deep functional insights to crossfunctional predictions

More and more companies are forgoing the siloed decisionmaking processes in favor of a holistic, cross-functional approach with the option of drilling down to functional levels (such as finance, sales, HR and others) as and when requiredimportant step for improving business performance across an enterprise. Depending upon how analytics is integrated into the fabric of an enterprise, it can play a significant role in bringing together people, processes and technology at a company.

Speedy decisionmaking
Increasingly, companies are investing in analytics to reach strategic business decisions quickly and to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Our research shows that companies that have invested in advanced analytics capabilities significantly outperform their competitors. It also confirms that companies that invest heavily in developing analytical skills and adopt an analytical mindset recover faster from economic downturns than their competitors.

Impact of Analytics
Indeed, analytics is less about fluff and more about hard facts. Here are snippets of real life scenarios that you may relate to where analytics has a direct impact on business outcomes.

Quarterly Review Analytics

An intelligence-driven decision support capability sheds light on competitive information not only to reliably answer where a company is winning and losing but also to predict reactions to market conditions with precision. Let us help our client, Briknet1, use insights from analytics. In preparation for the Quarterly review, Jack at Briknet notes that all the indicators on the Executive Dashboard are green. They indicate that the companys revenue grew by15% in Latin Americaup by 8% from the previous year

Analytics as a managed service

Traditional large scale analytics programs called for significant upfront investment with the possibility of delays in the realization of business value or value realized was less than promised. By contrast, analytics as a managed service provides a platform for companies to align their investments to business value, correct a course of action mid-way, and to breakeven faster than otherwise. It also integrates key capability components such as competitive discovery and exploitation, key value drivers, performance management processes, application enablement, data and infrastructure management, and governance and operating model.

However Oscar, Briknets regional lead, has access to another set of facts according to which Briknet is actually losing market share to a competitor whose revenue grew by 27% in the same region. In fact, Oscar notices that other competitors have also outpaced Briknet in the region during the same period due primarily to increased sale of fungicides and insecticides. Since he is looking at data from another perspective, he is able to pin down the source of the growth that Jack saw on the Executive Dashboard. The sources was a combination of three factors: 8% from volume growth, 6% from pricing initiatives and 1% from currency fluctuation. He also sees that maximum growth occurred only in one region

Oscar shares his insights at the quarterly roundtable discussion with Jack, the strategic planning director and other colleagues. His insights help the team in identifying key issues and opportunities and in strategizing the future course of action

1Not a real company.

 Factual data from many angles helps Briknet business executives increase revenue beyond initial projections while simultaneously increasing market share and profitability in Latin America

Price elasticity and profitability analysis reveals that Coilnet could actually charge a 12% premium over standard margins by bundling products, rather than selling them individually

Going Forward
We are likely to see more and more companies harness the power of analytics to obtain a fine-grained visibility into their business process prior to making key decisions and use it as a competitive differentiator. Increasingly business executives will draw on the insights from analytics to help them drive growth across the organization, enhance cost and cash advantage, improve operational excellence, restructure business at scale and to win the war of talent.

Pricing and Profit Optimization

A business workflow that integrates sensing analytics with formal processes for pricing and sales is able to help enterprises maximize revenue through increased win-rates and profits. Let us help our client, Coilnet2, to assist its customers win Federal and State contacts. Based on the issuance of Federal and State bids, Coilnets sensing engine, which combines web-sniffers with analytics, predicts a spike for equipment demand in two regions of the United States

The pricing team works with the customer service representatives and account managers to merge the insights from various analytics teams. They develop a strategy that locks pricing in advance for both types of equipment and creates a bundle that competitors cannot match

Accenture Analytics
Accenture has formed a strategic alliance with SAS to help clients use analytics as a competitive differentiator. The Analytics Center of Excellence in Bangalore provides industryspecific analytics solutions covering a broad range of areas such as Process Excellence, Claims and Fraud Analytics, Customer Centricity and Churn Analytics, Supply Chain Analytics, Insurance Analytics and Health Care Analytics. It also provides end-to-end consulting and implementation services in key areas including Analytics Roadmaps, Information Management Strategy, Data Management Strategy and Content Analytics. The Center has seasoned experts who are highly knowledgeable about industry-specific functional knowledge and analytics technologies.

Customers of Coilnet who won Federal and State contracts were stunned by its pricing strategy and the insights it shared with them.

2Not a real company

Here is how we help clients

Information management strategy and business analytics
We help clients build an information management and analytics roadmap and to prioritize significant opportunities across business applications and business processes. This pragmatic approach aligns our offerings to the business objectives of our clients.

Implementation and Management We draw on our functional experiences in various industries, deep understanding of analytics technology, strong alliance with SAS and our governance models when providing analytics solutions. Industrialized Delivery For more than a decade, we have developed our information management and analytics capabilities and implementation factories around an ecosystem of information management and analytics leaders such as Informatica, SAS, Teradata, SAP BOBJ, Microsoft, IBM and Oracle. This makes us a reliable partner in the eyes of our clients.

Career Opportunities at Accenture

If you enjoyed reading this article and would like to explore career opportunities in India with Accenture, we encourage you to visit us and learn about vacancies, our work environment, benefits, career path and much more. About Accenture Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 236,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the worlds most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011. Its home page is www.accenture.com

Analytics factory and subscription-based offering

We provide support to clients who want to build their own analytics applications, implement pre-packaged analytics services or leverage state of the art analytics hosted platform as an offering by leveraging our expertise in Proprietary Methodologies We use proven roadmaps, methodologies, technologybased accelerators, Accenture Analytics Subscription Environment (AASE) and implementation frameworks, all of which help clients become agile, start their analytics journey quickly, minimize risk and optimize cost.

Research and innovation

Our analytics services allow clients to reach markets that were previously unapproachable due to high cost and capital investment or other restrictions and to reshape industries by utilizing innovative distribution channels, stronger analytics and altered competitive landscapes. Accenture's Analytics Program has been working with industry experts to develop industryspecific point of view (PoV) papers for the opportunities that analytics will generate in the coming years.

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