Business Analytics for Managers, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3Development and Deployment of Information at the Functional Level

Business analytics (BA) only creates value if operational processes are improved, if new ones are initiated, or if BA creates certainty that we should not do something. Our lead information is used to improve these existing processes or initiate completely new business processes. Our lag information is used to measure existing processes, typically via key performance indicators (KPIs). In this chapter, we look at the second of the five levels in the BA model introduced in Chapter 1. At this level, we identify how to get from having some overall objectives for a department to being able to specify the information and data requirements. We discuss the relationship between BA and the operational level and the relationship between strategic plans and how to operationalize them with a focus on the BA function's deliveries.

So what we do is to specify which information we need in order to implement the objectives we have been given as a department, based on the corporate strategy from the last chapter. Another way of describing this is to talk about developing an information strategy, because just as we need to formulate a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy to reflect the overall strategy and its requirements to the CRM function, we also need to have an information strategy in place that reflects the information and data requirements placed by corporate strategy to the BA function. The relationship ...