Want to be a business leader? Be analytical!

By Marcus Von Engel

In most Korean companies, technology has received the lion’s share of attention, with not enough attention to process and people. Let’s examine each in turn.

High-performing companies make analysis an integral part of everyday business processes ― methods by which work gets done and value gets created. Developing a repeatable decision-making process that leverages data and analytical methods must be a high priority.

Keep in mind that the power of analytics derives from making connections ― recognizing patterns in customer demand or business activities, isolating the drivers of performance, and anticipating the effects of decisions. To make connections, you have to look beyond the immediate task and appreciate what happens upstream and downstream.

Having the right people focused on the right set of problems is one of the most important components of developing an effective analytical capability. High-performing firms typically have their analytics capabilities centrally managed by one accountable leader.

Likely candidates for this role are the CFO (Chief Financial Officer), CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), COO (Chief Operating Officer), or CIO (Chief Information Officer), but the title is less important than personal characteristics, including a strong analytical acumen. Analytical staff should be recruited and organized based on skill sets and the type of analysis they will complete.

Companies will need a mix of analytical professionals to know how to find the relevant data and perform the modeling, but also analytical amateurs who can apply the models throughout the business.

The type of tools that should be deployed across the organization will depend on the type of analysis that needs to be completed, the skill-sets of the analyst, and data availability and quality. It’s usually most effective to embed analytics through technologies that employees routinely use, on top of industrial-strength architecture, rather than through special, standalone applications. The proliferation of data and more powerful computing technologies to crunch the data are propelling analytics to a more prominent role in business. But technology is just part of the story. Data becomes valuable only after it’s shaped into insights, and when those insights inform the key decision processes that lead to better outcomes.

Marcus Von Engel is senior executive of Accenture Korea. He can be reached at marcus.von.engel@accenture.com