Putting Data Front and Center

Just before Billy Beane, the general manager of baseball’s Oakland Athletics, gave the opening keynote at this year’s dscoop event, I heard a young woman behind me ask her companion, “Who is this guy? And what’s a baseball executive doing speaking at the conference – did his team win the World Series?”

It was a fair question. After all, if you aren’t a baseball fan or a statistics devotee, you may not have heard of Beane. By the end of his presentation, however, I’m sure the woman had gotten at least the basics: A former (mediocre) ballplayer, Beane became an early adopter of using analytics and data in baseball, and as a result was able to successfully steer his team to the playoffs – despite having a much smaller payroll than his wealthier competitors. Because of Beane’s success, nearly every baseball team has since added an “analytics guru” to their staff.

Beane and his use of data became the subject of the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, by Michael Lewis. Columbia Pictures then got into the act, turning the book into a movie, with Brad Pitt playing Beane’s character.

And if I have a minor criticism about Beane’s presentation, it’s that he spent a little too much time talking about Brad Pitt and Pitt’s wife, Angelina Jolie. I’m sure some folks enjoyed hearing his “insider” tidbits about Brad and Angelina, but I worried that the true “Moneyball” message could be lost: By using data and analytics, and carefully analyzing your own operation, you just might be able to discover some things that give you an edge on your competition. And perhaps you can even overtake a larger rival.

So how do you go about looking at data in your own firm? We address the topic in this month’s cover story (“Leveraging Your Data, page 10), looking at internal data as well as customer data.

And there’s this advice, from a recent McKinsey & Company report (“Straight Talk About Big Data,” McKinsey Quarterly, mckinsey.com). When exploring how data and analytics can be better integrated into their companies, the firm suggests, a firm’s leaders should ask these five questions:

• “Do we have a value-driven analytics strategy?” – Asking the right questions is the critical first step. These should start big: “What is the size of this opportunity? If I had the additional insights possible through advanced analytics, how much could I save? How much additional revenue could I achieve?”
• “Do we have the right ‘domain data’ to support our strategy?” – From where are you sourcing data? Is it existing data? If so, does it need to be cleaned up? Which external data sources can you mine (or should you mine)?
• “Where are we in our journey?” – The data-and-analytics journey takes place in stages. It’s crucial to start laying the foundation and to start building analytics capabilities even before the foundation is set.
• “Are we modeling the change personally?” – There should be constant communication from the top that analytics is a priority in your company.
•  “Are we organizing and leading for analytics?” –The most important shift, which only the CEO can lead, is to reorganize to put advanced analytics at the center of every core process.

By integrating data analysis into your firm, you’re giving yourself additional opportunities to steer your own “team” to success. Brad Pitt may not play you in a movie, and you might never meet Angelina Jolie, but who wants all that Hollywood gossip anyway?

Suppressing Print

Expanded multi-channel delivery is just one of the five primary factors affecting the direction of the transactional/transpromo market, reports Roger Tapke at Madison Advisors: “Service providers continue to see print volumes eroded by electronic delivery methods, including websites, e-mail, text messaging, and mobile. Print suppression is typically in the 15 – 20% range, but can go as high as 95% for businesses set up primarily for electronic communications.” The firm’s research report, “Service Provider Market Pricing Study, 5th Edition,” identifies the cost trends and pricing models shaping today’s print and mail-service provider market and is available directly from Madison Advisors (madison-advisors.com/shop).