Data and Analytics: The Rewards Are Real

Digital World Class® companies are 3X more likely to use advanced analytics than their peers. That may be why they have a 29% lower overall cost of operations, 83% higher net margins and 55% higher total shareholder return.

Data and analytics can fuel business growth

Virtually everything has become a data point and can provide the fuel for your company’s economic engine. Greater data storage capacity and enhanced computing power make performing analytics faster and cheaper, while enabling more complex, predictive algorithms. Digital World Class companies know they can use data both to identify new efficiencies and to create new growth opportunities. They are applying analytics in dozens of ways throughout their organizations.

Data and analytics must become pervasive

Turning data into timely, usable insight is clearly critical. Yet only 24% of GBS organizations that we surveyed at the end of 2021 had an initiative in place to improve analytical capacity, and only 18% had large-scale deployments of data and analytics. Why the gap? Designing and deploying analytics capabilities that are end to end, repeatable, scalable and integral to core business operations may seem daunting. But with our expertise, your company can make it happen. Here are some of the ways we can assist you:

You need a data and analytics strategy

Know where analytics is already helping your organization, develop business cases for other uses, and then create a road map to coordinate data and analytics efforts. We have helped dozens of companies devise an analytics strategy.

Design an architecture to support data and analytics

The volume and variety of data you need for analytics-driven decision-making may require an updated architecture such as a data lake or data lake house. Our expertise in these technologies can shorten the timeline for your implementation.

Business intelligence and data visualization tools deliver insights

If your company needs to provide business users with customized reports and visualizations based on data and analytics – wherever they work – you may want to seek out new capabilities. We can help you craft the best mix of features for your organization.

Data science turns insights into action

By embedding advanced analytics such as artificial intelligence and machine learning in your data and analytics system, your organization can operationalize insights consistently and continuously. Our clients have seen transformative results from such implementations.

Master data management and data governance provide control

Data stewardship – efficiently capturing, cleansing and refreshing data to ensure its accuracy – is essential if your organization is to rely on data and analytics to guide action. Our depth of experience in these essential tasks can help you achieve results faster.

Security, privacy and compliance capabilities build trust

Robust practices to protect access to and use of data are key to building trust with customers and regulators, ensuring that your organization can continue to reap the benefits of data and analytics. Our deep knowledge of best practices in this area can help your company establish and monitor such practices.

Choose the right platform for data and analytics

As your organization’s use of data and analytics grows, cloud-based solutions may become attractive, since they can grow and shrink based on demand. They also typically require fewer information technology staff. We have helped scores of companies develop cloud-based platforms to support their analytic needs.

Building a Global Predictive Analytics Capability

Featured Insight

Building a Global Predictive Analytics Capability

More predictable results, profit and cash from value-based predictive analytics.

Data and analytics aren’t just about technology –
They’re about people, too

Your organization needs to support decisions with advanced analytical capabilities based on real-time, high-quality data that is managed throughout the life cycle as a strategic asset. But there’s also a human side to leveraging data and analytics. Staff at every level need analytics literacy so they know how to frame issues in ways that analytics can address, put insights to work and evaluate outcomes.

Your organization may already be using data and analytics to better target marketing offers or improve the accuracy of financial forecasting. But there are many other potential use cases – supply chain analytics, plant/asset utilization analysis, and workforce analytics to model and manage attrition, to name just a few.

Data and analytics can be combined with smart automation, including robotic process automation (RPA), to create continuous improvement and enable value capture throughout the life cycle of automated processes.

As your organization extends its use of analytics, you will want to ensure executive-level support, define priorities, and establish success criteria for data and analytics projects. During this phase, our unparalleled benchmarking tools can help your company in doing this. We can help assess your technology maturity, show you what companies of a similar size in your industry have done, and describe steps your company could take to benefit from data and analytics.

We can also help you evaluate the talent needed to plan, deploy and use analytical tools. This will help management decide what talent gaps to fill internally, where upskilling may be needed and if some degree of outsourcing might be helpful.

Many organizations have disparate and disjointed data systems that make it difficult to obtain a more holistic view of operations. Data may be held in functional/geographical/divisional vaults that make it difficult even for trained analysts to perform data analytics.

Your organization may be exceptional: You may have clearly defined roles and responsibilities related to analytics, as well as curated data warehouses or a data lake house and perhaps a center of excellence to support the ways that you currently employ data and analytics. But as you add new uses and “democratize” analytics to empower additional business users, you may need to make modifications.

For example, if incorporating new external data about your customers, your industry or economic conditions would strengthen your analytics capabilities, your organization may need to modify relationships with partners or service providers, and then reconfigure data stores, data privacy and data security processes.

It can be daunting to select data and analytics technologies that are a good fit for your business model, use cases, level of technology maturity and depth of staff capabilities. Many solutions are available, and deciding whether to go with on-premises or cloud-based solutions complicates the selection process.

Our partner relationships with Oracle, SAP, AWS, MAPR, Alteryx and other technology providers allow us to provide guidance as you seek out solutions tailored to your company’s data and analytics goals. To reduce redundancy and streamline user access, for example, you may find it cost-effective to move analytic applications to the cloud, as many companies are doing.

Above all, our unrivaled knowledge of proven best practices means that your organization can rapidly realize the benefits of deploying data and analytics solutions. Our Business Best Practices Intelligence Center™ is the world’s largest searchable online repository of empirically proven business best practices, performance metrics, implementation tools, and associated Hackett research and events.

As your company adds to the ways you apply data and analytics, you will want to continually measure business outcomes. Keeping project goals clearly defined makes this easier. Recognize that in some cases initial results may disappoint and a different approach may be needed. Or you may need to revise use cases as more insights are discovered or new technologies emerge.

A key success factor is to use a collaborative model, so that your company’s analysts partner with business leaders who have detailed knowledge of key processes. This aids in obtaining useful outcomes from data and analytics initiatives.

Adoption of advanced analytics, data visualization tools and master data management tools are all expected to grow by 19% in 2022.

– Key Issues 2022, The Hackett Group

Why choose The Hackett Group?

Intellectual capital

Insight from analyzing our in-depth benchmarking repository allows us to expedite your transformation. You benefit from practices that run the world’s best businesses, rather than individual experience.

Value-obsessed

We’ve quantified business value – calculated using our unmatched benchmarking data – and correlated business practices with superior performance, allowing us to pinpoint the best opportunities for performance gains.

Technology-agnostic

We know how to enable peak performance and can help select the best technology or platform, and implement solutions that accelerate measurable value and achieve business goals.

Exclusive assets

Leverage our proprietary enablement tools and Business Excelleration® resources – based on our unique intellectual capital – to chart your improvement course, monitor process and quantify value.

To Build Customer Trust, You’ll Need
Trustworthy Data and Analytics

During the pandemic, people re-examined their loyalty to brands, companies and institutions. In parallel, regulators worldwide re-examined rules covering the collection and use of data. So just as using data and analytics to attract and keep customers has become a higher priority, it has become more complicated to do so. However, the many benefits of applying data and analytics in a range of business situations far outweigh the challenges. Those companies that embrace the challenges will thrive, while others will be left behind. Find out more about how your company can stay in the lead in your industry by deploying data and analytics.