The Analytics Revolution

CHAPTER 1 Understanding Operational Analytics

Yes, the revolution has begun. Operational analytics are leading the charge in the industrial revolution of analytics and are already starting to push the boundaries of what companies do with analytics. Operational analytics will, over time, vastly increase the number of analytics processes that must be built and the speed with which those analytics must execute. As we'll discuss later, new concepts such as decision time and time to insight will become primary drivers of how to invest and where to focus effort.

Operational analytics require a disciplined and organized approach across an organization and a lot of technological, process, and cultural change as well. People are not initially comfortable turning over many day-to-day decisions to machines and analytics processes. However, time will prove that if organizations build the right operational analytics, the results will be well worth the effort.

Yes, the revolution has begun! Before that statement can be understood, it is necessary to explain exactly what it means. This chapter lays the groundwork that the rest of the book builds on. We define what operational analytics are. We also discuss some market trends that are supporting the push for operational analytics. Last, we reinforce several important themes that are worth remembering as an organization moves toward operational analytics.

Defining Operational Analytics

This book is about operational analytics. But what