Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

Chapter 16

Business Performance Tracking

Execution and Measurement

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”

—Khalil Gibran

Business performance tracking is part of the Business Analytics Success Pillars (BASP) framework we introduced in detail in the second chapter of this book. The BASP framework is made up of the following pillars:

• Business challenge pillar. The most pressing business problems that you seek to address using analytics.
• Data foundation pillar. The data that will support the analytics process.
• Analytics implementation pillar. The logistics of how to execute analytics systems and processes in a way that addresses your business challenges.
• Insights pillar. The key to business impact, and often the most difficult step, lies in the ability to take raw data and turn it into a compelling narrative that addresses specific business challenges and results in business actions.
• Execution and measurement pillar. Analytical intelligence must be put to work to provide tools and guidance that lead to business actions and must have the ability to track the impact of those actions.
• Distributed knowledge. There must be a conscious and concerted effort to communicate, disseminate, and make analytics available broadly across the organization.
• Innovation pillar. Analytic teams must be aggressive in the use of new ideas or methods to address business challenges and go beyond customer expectations.

In this chapter we will focus on the ...