Random thoughts on the evolving shift taking place in business today.
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Thursday, April 02, 2009
Analytics in a Retail World - eMetrics Presentation
I've attached the presentation delivered at eMetrics on April 1st in Toronto. The main point is that the role of the analyst is to grow the business, so stop running reports and start telling stories.
Good points, Simon. I agree most with two of your takeaways here:
1) The concept that the analyst’s role is to grow the business, not simply pull reports "in a vacuum" without an underlying Growth objective driving one‘s efforts.
This definitely syncs with my own belief that Context Matters, ie. the actions of every employee within an organization should always be undertaken as the team-based pursuit of a joint target . Whether this common goal is growth, defending against upstart competitors or another objective is not as important as the need for all the team members’ oars to be in the water pulling in the same direction at the same speed at all times…
2) Stories can communicate much effectively than simply quoting data points. Anyone who wants to make an impact in their career but has not yet figured this one out would do well to start leveraging the simple yet powerful storytelling approach ASAP.
I really enjoyed your presentation at eMetrics. You are certainly touching many situations that as analysts we all face in our organization.
It is always interesting and insightful to take a look at how other organizations manage to overcome barriers and solve the problems you face day to day. However, I wanted to point out a couple of things.
1) I agree with your vision of the role the analyst should play in the organization. I personally like to be proactive and creative looking for new ways to generate value and insights, drive change and empower the end users.
However it is often underestimated the role of politics and all the ground work you have to do to reach the stage you have reached with your strategy at Sears. I wonder how much internal resistance did have to face to reach this point and what you learned from it?
2) About context and the lack of vision.
I remember this teacher I had at university, that used to go over and over again on the importance of "understanding the system, its purpose, the flow of interactions and all the actors involved" in order to improve the process or come up with a solution.
"The computers are just the tools", he used to say, "we use them only because they are the best tool available".
It was shocking to notice how, after this speech more than three quarters of the students were still missing the whole picture.They were already thinking on the technical software solution to use instead of understanding the problem first. Why to become a Systems Engineer if you don't want to understand the "system" but become a "tool expert"?
Exactly the same situation is happening in the Web Analytics world. Is it perhaps because of the diversity of professionals that have jumped to the web analyst role? What are we missing?
3) Web Analytics in the context of the business strategy
It is important to notice that we as analysts and the key stakeholders in the organization need to understand that Web Analytics is a process.
The strategy should evolve in time and adapt to the circumstances, changes and context (good point Sionne). It is a system, almost a living entity and your approach to getting feedback is fundamental. I wonder if you have a process to gather internal feedback as well?
I assume that all the accomplishments and initiatives you mentioned are part of a larger long term strategy. While looking at your presentation, as well as during the ones from Travelocity, Aeroplan or Overstock, just to mention a few, I was thinking on how valuable would be to have a framework, an starting point to asses our situation and give us ideas for the next step. I was also wondering if reaching each and every stage of development is really necessary for any organization.
It's exciting to see all the research that is being done. However it is quite as interesting to see how history repeats itself and how valuable looking to other disciplines can be to improve our own processes and strategies.
4) I also enjoyed the approach to storytelling and its role it has. It is the single most powerful way we humans have to communicate an learn, since our early childhood and so innate to humans. However once we become complex adults and professionals, with complex minds and problems we tend to forget its importance.
5) You also mentioned "Quality" as one of the pillars of your strategy. Have you already reached a point where you can have some sort of a contract between your unit and the key stakeholders of the organization? How do you manage quality?
6) Now going to he tools (we have to reach this point at a certain point in time). I remember you mentioned that you were a Omniture powerhouse but you still use Google Analytics in parallel. Are you doing it just because it is intuitive and the end users prefer it? It is just some sort of a backup? Or which is its role in your strategy? Is it just a backup strategy? (I will not dare to mention that a faulty implementation could be the reason behind it.... never!).
Well, I wanted to make a short comment and I ended up making a whole story out of it. Is it because I am an analyst? Or just because I really enjoy discussing about this topics?
2 comments:
Good points, Simon. I agree most with two of your takeaways here:
1) The concept that the analyst’s role is to grow the business, not simply pull reports "in a vacuum" without an underlying Growth objective driving one‘s efforts.
This definitely syncs with my own belief that Context Matters, ie. the actions of every employee within an organization should always be undertaken as the team-based pursuit of a joint target . Whether this common goal is growth, defending against upstart competitors or another objective is not as important as the need for all the team members’ oars to be in the water pulling in the same direction at the same speed at all times…
2) Stories can communicate much effectively than simply quoting data points. Anyone who wants to make an impact in their career but has not yet figured this one out would do well to start leveraging the simple yet powerful storytelling approach ASAP.
Thank-you for sharing.
SR
Simon,
I really enjoyed your presentation at eMetrics. You are certainly touching many situations that as analysts we all face in our organization.
It is always interesting and insightful to take a look at how other organizations manage to overcome barriers and solve the problems you face day to day. However, I wanted to point out a couple of things.
1) I agree with your vision of the role the analyst should play in the organization. I personally like to be proactive and creative looking for new ways to generate value and insights, drive change and empower the end users.
However it is often underestimated the role of politics and all the ground work you have to do to reach the stage you have reached with your strategy at Sears. I wonder how much internal resistance did have to face to reach this point and what you learned from it?
2) About context and the lack of vision.
I remember this teacher I had at university, that used to go over and over again on the importance of "understanding the system, its purpose, the flow of interactions and all the actors involved" in order to improve the process or come up with a solution.
"The computers are just the tools", he used to say, "we use them only because they are the best tool available".
It was shocking to notice how, after this speech more than three quarters of the students were still missing the whole picture.They were already thinking on the technical software solution to use instead of understanding the problem first. Why to become a Systems Engineer if you don't want to understand the "system" but become a "tool expert"?
Exactly the same situation is happening in the Web Analytics world. Is it perhaps because of the diversity of professionals that have jumped to the web analyst role? What are we missing?
3) Web Analytics in the context of the business strategy
It is important to notice that we as analysts and the key stakeholders in the organization need to understand that Web Analytics is a process.
The strategy should evolve in time and adapt to the circumstances, changes and context (good point Sionne). It is a system, almost a living entity and your approach to getting feedback is fundamental. I wonder if you have a process to gather internal feedback as well?
I assume that all the accomplishments and initiatives you mentioned are part of a larger long term strategy. While looking at your presentation, as well as during the ones from Travelocity, Aeroplan or Overstock, just to mention a few, I was thinking on how valuable would be to have a framework, an starting point to asses our situation and give us ideas for the next step. I was also wondering if reaching each and every stage of development is really necessary for any organization.
When I first thought about this I remembered the Capacity Maturity Model that is applied by Software and System Engineers and how such an approach can be of use in Web Analytics. Then I found the Gartner Maturity Model for Web Analytics and recently I bumped into the approach Stephane Hamel is taking to the subject.
It's exciting to see all the research that is being done. However it is quite as interesting to see how history repeats itself and how valuable looking to other disciplines can be to improve our own processes and strategies.
4) I also enjoyed the approach to storytelling and its role it has. It is the single most powerful way we humans have to communicate an learn, since our early childhood and so innate to humans. However once we become complex adults and professionals, with complex minds and problems we tend to forget its importance.
5) You also mentioned "Quality" as one of the pillars of your strategy. Have you already reached a point where you can have some sort of a contract between your unit and the key stakeholders of the organization? How do you manage quality?
6) Now going to he tools (we have to reach this point at a certain point in time). I remember you mentioned that you were a Omniture powerhouse but you still use Google Analytics in parallel. Are you doing it just because it is intuitive and the end users prefer it? It is just some sort of a backup? Or which is its role in your strategy? Is it just a backup strategy? (I will not dare to mention that a faulty implementation could be the reason behind it.... never!).
Well, I wanted to make a short comment and I ended up making a whole story out of it. Is it because I am an analyst? Or just because I really enjoy discussing about this topics?
Thank you for sharing your experiences!
Jose
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