Food for thought

Analytics today is the buzzword in corporate corridors but it has taken a hard journey for the science of algorithms to make its mark as one beyond pure statistics, with differentiation, customization and advanced techniques defining its trajectory.

Understanding analytics and its many advantages is no more a choice for business leaders, it’s a necessity gaping at them. Those who understood its nuances early and embedded it in their core processes, leaped many years ahead of competition, gaining not only considerable market share but also advantages of efficiencies, that were hard to beat

As deliberations galore on how analytics can be used, choice of models available, customised solutions versus off-the-shelf tools, managers with understanding & experience in analytics are much sought after, making the demand supply gap wider than ever

Driven by an ever growing demand, markets today are flooded with solutions, packaged as  ‘ready to use’, often senselessly killing the very core on which analytics is based.

Software product companies have made the most of this demand by building products, with high built-in-intelligence that requires negligible human intervention, stashing so called ‘ready to use’ brilliant analytical solutions. It’s like automation replacing human mind!!!! .  As a result, we now have a set of push-button analysts who depend on these software products, without having to care any less about either the output or the rational that churns it out

Lack of knowledge is understandable but senseless adoption of ready solutions can be delirious.  If thought provoked research is compromised, the very foundation on which analytics created its niche may lose ground

As early adopters it is imperative for managers to understand analytics and its algorithmic methods, which are not about challenging human intelligence but more about complementing it with advanced techniques that cannot always be programmed.

While individual needs will define the choice between research based models vs. standard tools, managers should possess the wisdom to understand their respective virtues, before making the selection

Research based techniques may hold little comparison with standard models and it’s only through sensible adoption of analytics that advantages of both can be best explored