HBR Insights Future of Business Boxed Set (8 Books)

7

HOW A GERMAN MANUFACTURING COMPANY SET UP ITS ANALYTICS LAB

by Niklas Goby, Tobias Brandt, and Dirk Neumann

Over the past few years, most businesses have come to recognize that the ability to collect and analyze the data they generate has become a key source of competitive advantage.

ZF, a global automotive supplier based in Germany, was no exception. Digital startups had begun producing virtual products that ZF did not know how to compete against, and engineers in logistics, operations, and other functions were finding that their traditional approaches couldn’t handle the complex issues they faced. Some company executives had begun to fear they were in for their own “Kodak moment”—a fatal disruption that could redefine their business and ...