Analytics in Operations Part 7: Getting started with analytics in operations and series wrap-up

Bringing It All Together

Do you lead an operations function (or a part of a function) like finance/FP&A, HR, IT or business development?

Have you developed a strategy for improving analytics in your division/group/or team?

Are you trying to figure out how to implement it or where to start?

This is the final post in a seven-part series that considered:

• The nature of operations and why this makes it more difficult to improve analytics capabilities in operations functions.

• An analytics framework for understanding the analytics process better, particularly if you’re new to analytics.

• The analytics challenges in operations and ways to improve data quality and get better data insights.

• The coordination and the analytics knowledge, skills and roles needed to improve analytics in operations.

This post will wrap up this series with a focus on how to get started with analytics in operations as well as how to continue to build analytics capabilities.

Timeline

The first step in improving analytics capabilities in business operations is to identify your business and analytics goals as well as evaluate your current capabilities and potential. This information will help in creating an analytics plan.

Consider these key components.

Improving Capabilities

You won’t get much done without the right roles in place. Identify the people, roles, skills and coordination that you need to get started.

Keep in mind that it takes multiple stages, a lot of time to develop internal resources, and a variety of skills to develop analytics capabilities.

Data availability and Data Quality

The initial focus needs to be on data sources, data needs, data quality, basic analytics and reporting/business intelligence.

Coordinate with your technology team to develop the data infrastructure and processes to get the data and achieve the data quality that you need.

Reporting and Automation

If your company doesn’t have its reporting worked out, you’ll find that’s where much of your initial focus will be, whether you want it to be or not.

Work to reduce manual time spent on reporting to free up time for analysis. Start with improving your reporting process and developing better business intelligence and basic analytics.

Down the Road

Once you have a strong data and reporting foundation you can shift your focus to more [complex analytics efforts] where you may need additional and more advanced analytics skill sets like a data scientist.

Don’t Get Too Far Ahead

Advanced analytics may be stealing all the headlines but it’s not a good place to start. Improving your analytics capabilities is a journey and you need to start with the fundamentals.

Data First

Operations has a lot of data but you’ll spend all your time finding it and fixing it if you try to fast forward to advanced analytics. You must have a strong data, reporting, and basic analytics foundation before advanced analytics is possible.

Basic Analytics Next

If you hire an advanced (expensive) analytics team too soon, they’ll get pulled into day to day reporting or bogged down in data scavenger hunts. Many data science teams have unwittingly become data strategy and business intelligence teams. Remember that a data scientist is not one-stop-shopping solution for all your data needs and that a better strategy is to build a strong analytics team.

Higher Ground

Operations is about keeping everything running smoothly in an environment where day to day and cyclical responsibilities dominate. Within these functions data analytics can be seen as a separate specialization rather than integral and critical.

The key to improving analytics in operations is to make it core to the business and more relevant on a daily basis so that your people can see the value and embrace it.

Many data analytics challenges are really process and communication issues: they are cultural rather than technical.

Lost In the Data Wilderness?

Operations functions can easily be forgotten as they operate in the background. However, these are the functions that keep a company running and operating smoothly.

Safeguard your company’s profitability. Make sure that your operations functions aren’t lost in the data wilderness.

Your Data Wilderness Guide

The purpose of this series was to provide practical information for getting started with and advancing your operations analytics transformation. I hope that you have gained valuable insights and new perspectives, but it can be difficult to go it alone. Most companies will benefit from expert guidance to get on the right track, stay focused, and make faster progress.

How Ariel Analytics Can Help

As a small company we provide specialized data analytics expertise and personalized attention to guide our clients in accessing the power of their data and their people to make better business decisions.

When you work with Ariel Analytics, we will help your organization improve their analytics capabilities through data strategy, better analysis and models, report automation and interactive dashboards, and analytics training to boost employee skills and knowledge to achieve long term impact.

We offer several ways to work with us, check out our Guide, Level-up, and Immersion packages and our areas of expertise to learn more. Or book a free consult.

Why Choose Us?

Ariel Analytics specializes in data analytics and strategy for business operations. We are very familiar with the challenges in these areas including the struggle with legacy systems, unreliable or inaccessible data, communication/coordination gaps, and insufficient analytics resources and time for development.

We believe that companies have enormous untapped potential with respect to their people and their data, and this is particularly true in business operations where tried-and-true feels safer and innovation can be slow.

We specialize in data strategy and analytics, but we know that people are at the core of your business and we excel at bringing people together from all levels of an organization to understand and solve business problems.

We’re here to guide you so you can bridge the gap, maximize the potential of your people, process and data, and take your company to the next level.

Don’t get lost in the Data Wilderness, let us guide you!

Want more on this and other analytics topics? Join our mailing list! Our email subscribers get access to the complete series in an e-Book - Analytics in Operations.

DO YOU NEED GUIDANCE IN How to improve analytics in your operations functions?
CHECK OUT OUR SERVICE PACKAGES AND FIND OUT HOW ARIEL ANALYTICS CAN HELP.

About the photos: Denali National Park, Alaska

Thoughts: Denali is one of my favorite national parks. I was last there in the summer of 2019, and the day we were there the park was experiencing a flooding issue that closed part of the road. Instead of taking the shuttle through the park we ended up walking the road for about 8 miles which was an interesting way to see Denali. If you leave the main park road, Denali is truly the wilderness with very few marked trails. It’s the only national park I’ve been to where they tell you go wherever you want, rather than “stay on the trail”.

Have a data or analytics question that you’d like to see answered here? Email your questions to stacey@arielanalytics.com.

Stacey Schwarcz is the Founder and CEO of Ariel Analytics. She specializes in analytics for business operations, helping these functions improve their analytics capabilities. She is also the creator of The Data Wilderness ® Blog, which provides practical introductory analytics content for business professionals who are not analytics experts and want to learn more. LinkedIn