Failures and Solutions in Organizing Business Analytics Resources

• Activity Number: 429
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 6, 2013 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Randy Bartlett*+
• Companies: Blue Sigma Analytics
• Keywords: Analytics-Based Decision Making ; Business Analytics ; Case Studies ; CoEs ; Leadership ; Organization

Abstract

There is a tremendous opportunity to improve the organization of analytics resources. This is emphasized by Big Data; a dearth of statisticians; and regular failures in analytics and decision making. We discuss some of these failures and borrow from lessons learned at various corporations, including AIG, AstraZeneca, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Citigroup, Infosys, PricewaterhouseCoopers, etc.

We cover four aspects to organizing advanced analytics teams: 1. Team composition, 2. Team structure, 3. Leadership and management, and 4. Location of the resources.

The most important part of this reorganization is to expand the team to include more leaders and analytics-based decision makers. We discuss the contents and structure of extended analytics teams. We explain the differences between managing and leading as revealed by Warren Bennis. We discuss the advantages of leadership possessing training in analytics. Finally, we cover the topic of where to place analytics resources, externally, locally within some lines of business, centrally (CoEs), or a combination of these there.

This presentation is based upon findings in A Practitioner's Guide To Business Analytics.