Monetizing Your Data

CHAPTER 2Analytical Cycle: Driving Quality Decisions

…having troves of data is of little value in and of itself. What increasingly separates the winners from the losers is the ability to transform data into insights about consumers' motivations and to turn those insights into strategy.

This quote is from Frank van den Driest, Stan Sthanunathan, and Keith Weed's article, “Building an Insights Engine.” Later on in the same article, they continue with,

Until recently, large firms had an advantage over smaller rivals simply because of the scale of their market research capability. Today research that once took months and cost millions can be done for a fraction of that price and in mere days. What matters now is not so much the quantity of data a firm can amass but its ability to connect the dots and extract value from the information.

Both of these concepts are vital to this chapter and this book. The problem they are referring to is a gap that exists between our ability to define what is relevant information and how to monetize it. We show you how to close this gap through our Analytical Cycle, the focus of this chapter, and Decision Architecture, a methodology comprising Decision Analysis, Agile Analytics, and Monetization Strategy.

The Analytical Cycle provides you with a frame of reference on how to solve analytical problems. The journey starts with the business problem statement and questions you ask yourself as you try to understand how to create an opportunity ...