Performance Controller

"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results"...WC Print

According to The Economist Feb 25th 2010, article headlined The Data Deluge, using data mining techniques credit-card companies lead the way to identify such things as fraudulent activity.

Using data this way Insurance firms too are more able to spot the scams. For example accident claims on a Monday are more likely to be staged as such claimants tend to assemble friends as false witnesses over a weekend. 

To do this rules based data crouching thru millions of transactions lets them see which cards that are likely to be stolen, and which claims that are likely to be dodgy.

This report in its full context is about the unchecked data explosion occurring

It reports on its value and use to include benefits of data mining, also known as business intelligence, and the risks to both business and personal information.

It is well worth a read…… “The Data Deluge”

Thanks to Steve Bennet at oz-analytics for alerted us to this.

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A new breed of manager is emerging to manage information. CIO teams who have provided BI tools to business departments are trending to use BI more strategically. Once a BI data warehouse and reporting platform is in place, if it integrates well with with Finance, CEO’s become quickly tuned in to the value of having reliable information to share to get momentum.

We all know as a team player being quick to score is important. But we also know the real game is played in the coaches’ box, where they have a full view. Here they have an ability to understand the total competitive state to plan tactics and execute plays. Being up to date and confident with good intelligence, as the runners bring back the field detail they can’t see, means they can control the game to win by handling things well as they happen.

With constant change being now such a part of life and post recession dynamics to contend with, the question is, ‘How do managers and coaches in business keep abreast of all this in a “win or die culture”. Like the game; those with a blend of strategic and tactical skills who have access to reliable business intelligence information are surviving well in the markets that no longer take prisoners.

My attention was raised on this subject by a question put David Brown, a business leader now living in Europe, as he talked of his real life experience in Asia; “Do today’s Managers have the skills to adapt to the current Economic Climate?”

His observation was that many in business still draw a blank when confronted by process metrics. A past CIO himself and now mentor, when speaking with CIO leaders his example highlights a concern about managers who don’t understand the value-add steps and risk that must be controlled to ensure money-in turns into more money-out.

 

I was constantly surprised by the lack of their knowledge of the tools that could help them better manage their Business. In one of my presentations at a Microsoft Seminar to CIO’s I used an example of an end-to-end process, “Cash-to-Cash”; and how the process could be decomposed into lower level processes allowing performance metrics to be applied to better manage their Working Capital. But I could see from the look on their faces that they did not understand and would not be able to communicate this approach to their Companies Management Team.

I repeated this presentation at a CIO Magazine event, where I was a keynote speaker, and once again could see a lot of blank looks on the audiences faces

                                                                         …. David Brown, Biz Performance

This got got me wondering if it is really is about knowing the tools or if it also about the focus of the managers who use them.

To most a Business Information (BI) specialist means the guy who takes care of the data and the systems that reports it.  And CIO’s, who often wear 2 hats do those jobs plus a whole lot more on technical infrastructure when IT is not separated out as a function.

On the other hand a Business Intelligence specialist (also BI), is the person who makes use of the data value to promote action to grow the business.  There is the dilemma as that person, who understands the outcomes and how to use and mange with information, lives in the business or in Finance.

Many CIO’s now recognize this BI Dilemma and when looking for for BI solutions they don’t just go to a BI Vendor for the answer. They are actually taking a more end to end approach by restructuring to blend with high end business teams to separate BI from the technical side. As they do they are also finding more demand for their time as BI redefines itself to focus on the information value to get and maintain that business momentum.

With this higher value by aligning business and IT to create intelligence centers, companies are now seeing the CIO move back more to coaches’ box. This is also seeing them reduce their time playing go fetch.

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Harmonizing organization data and getting easy access to information are mission critical values for IT.

These are also quite often hard to meet without a high risk investments to create a data warehouse.

BI tools can achieve this in a low risk way as a natural outcome of seeking business benefits, like increased quality in managing sales growth.

In many organizations IT strategies champion and support BI implementations. Their aim is  to enroll the business to improve this critical back end service as a strategic way to remove constraints that limit achievement of business performance objectives.

It is interesting that our poll, so far, sees responses largely on the business values with these two high value items lagging. (Ralph Eastman – Poling the BI Value)

Perhaps business leaders should consider how they can align IT on the value of BI to IT and challenge this critical function to consider the value they can bring with BI on a wider scale.

Without a solid foundation of harmonized easy to get to data, none of the other values are possible.

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Stephen Few and Nigel Pendse, are examples of business experts, each with quite distinctly different styles and modes of working. Both call it as they see it without fear or favor .

They can do so because they do the ground work and run their business in a way they can claim that right.

Pendse, is widely known and respected by all in the performance management business community that he serves on all continents,

Stephen Few, is a US based consulting specialist and author. His style is no nonsense to the point and he calls a  spade a spade.

Something each wrote recently under a clever headlines got my attention.

Read more…

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