Question: Why does Analytics have to be a business function and not remain as an IT function?

Analytics should be considered a business function for three reasons: direction and motivation

Direction. For any analytics project to be successful, it should have a clear and strong purpose, ideally
one that is aligned with the organization’s prime objectives. By treating analytics projects as a business
endeavor, we are given an opportunity to capitalize untapped, real-world data that’s accumulated by
the company as a resource by processing them into actionable insights. As a result, these insights help
the organization grow or streamline their operations, essentially contributing to the accomplishment of
the company’s objectives.

Motivation. Depending on the scale and the scope, analytics projects incur considerable amount of time
money, and effort. Therefore, the potential outcomes of an analytics project should be feasible and
convincing enough to the constituents of the organization, especially its upper management or
leadership team. Once management understands the true value of analytics to the company, they’ll
consider analytics projects as an essential investment for the company, developing the company’s
analytics maturity in the long run.

Question: What are the implications of doing Analytics that is not centered on the people?

>Inefficient, expensive, big losses

>A big waste of data

>Useless

Analytics provide value to a company or organization through the interpretation and communication of
meaningful patterns in data and utilizing that information towards making effective and evidence-based
decisions.

People are the primary source of revenue for businesses and if analytics projects aren’t centered on
people then there’s no point in doing analytics at all. The goal of analytics is to make society a better
place by studying people’s behavior through data and using that information into building a better
customer experience, build a better product, or prescribe better solutions.

If Analytics wasn’t centered on people, companies won’t grow or innovate and possibly lose a lot of
money eventually. If companies don’t build analytics projects with people in mind, they wouldn’t know
how to build a better product because they don’t know what people want and what people need. They
would stick with old business processes which do not adapt with trends in society and they risk losing a
lot of money in supporting inefficient, outdated ways of running the business.

Also if analytics wasn’t people centric, it is a huge waste of resources. Much of the data generated today
are from people and if we do not harness them to make the world a better place, we are throwing away
a very valuable resource. Data is said to be the new oil, a new resource that could help us make better
decisions on different scales: for ourselves, for our community, for our country and for the world. It
could reveal problems in society that need attention and prescribe solutions in improving the standard
of living. Not focusing on people devalues data and it’s nothing more than just accumulated records
made over time.