Sept 24, 2013

IIBA Business Analytics Series:

From Analysis to
Decision to Strategy:
Analytics & Change
in Your Organization
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 M aur een M cVey,
Picture here
Head of Lear ning and Development, IIBA
• Maureen McVey, CBAP has 16+ years of experience
as a business analyst and is a founding member of
IIBA.Ms. McVey has provided business analysis
services for many different industry sectors including;
banking, finance, insurance, government, policing and manufacturing
and has been working within the I.T. industry for over 25 years.

• As the Head of Learning and Development, Ms. McVey is accountable

to business analysts in the areas of competency and career
development. She supports corporations by providing process and
business analyst competency assessments. Ms. McVey assesses
academic business analysis programs ensuring alignment of those
programs to the IIBA Business Analysis Body of Knowledge ® (BABOK ®
Guide) and Competency Assessment Model v 3.0

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© I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f B u s i n e s s A n a l y s i s
Vision and Mission
The world's leading association for
Business Analysis professionals

Develop and maintain standards for

the practice of business analysis and
for the certification of its practitioners

IIBA® is an international not-for-profit

professional association for
business analysts.
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© I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f B u s i n e s s A n a l y s i s
 Professor J.P. Eggers
• J.P. Eggers joined New York University Stern
School of Business as an Assistant Professor
of Managem ent and Organizations in July 2008.
Professor Eggers teaches the core M.B.A. strategy class
and a strategy capstone elective.
• Professor Eggers's research interests focus on
technological change, decision-m aking under uncertainty
and new product developm ent. Specifically, he studies
the challenges faced by m anagers and executives in
m aking good decisions and addressing new opportunities
in em erging technologies.

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© I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f B u s i n e s s A n a l y s i s
 Question and Answer
• How to Ask Questions

Use the Question box to ask questions.

Selected questions w ill be answ er ed

Professor J.P. Eggers
at the end, but you can ask at any time.

Shor t, specif ic questions, please!

Maureen McVey

5
© I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f B u s i n e s s A n a l y s i s
This Webinar is presented by the
NYU Stern Master of Science in Business Analytics Program

Thought
Program: Schedule: Network:
Leadership:
Cohort of
a ccomplished
MS degree professionals that
focusing on the One year, s ha re a common Learn from world
intersection of executive-friendly vi s i on of leveraging renowned
da ta as a strategic
business and modular schedule a s set business faculty,
technology – a with classes held in experts and
New Degree global locations practitioners
Category Gra duates will join the
NYU Stern a lumni
community of
100,000+

Find Wisdom in Data

Call: 001 212 998 0442
Email: msba@stern.nyu.edu
Visit: stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+

From Analysis to Decision to Strategy:

Analytics & Change in Your Organization
J.P. Eggers
NYU Stern School of Business

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Obvious and growing interest in
analytics

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Obvious and growing interest in
analytics
 More than 83% of global CIOs called business
intelligence “one of their visionary plans
enhancing competitiveness”

 And interest is accelerating, as a 2011 study

reported a 57% single year increase in the number
of organizations adopting analytics to drive
competitive advantage

msba@stern.nyu.edu
Source: IBM’s 2010 and 2011 CIO surveys stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Obvious and growing interest in
analytics
 Managers want to use analytics for important tasks:
 62% want to optimize business operations (efficiency)
 44% want to understand business risk
 44% want to predict new opportunities
 43% want to forecast results so they can adjust plans

Source: InformationWeek 2013 Analytics & Info Management Trends report

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Interest rises, in part, because of
figures like this
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Many impediments to success in
analytics…

… but many
surveys don’t
ask about
anything other
than technical
problems
(cleaning data,
learning
software, etc.)
+
Organizational factors hold back
adoption the most

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Bottom-up & top-down challenges
to getting value from analytics
 Bottom-up, micro level – How to convince non-
experts to actually use insights from analytics

 Top-down, macro level – How to build an

organization that supports and maximizes value
from analytics

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Bottom-Up Challenges
Getting people to use what you have learned
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Convincing the non-believer:
A scenario…
 Sarah uses data on customer ordering behavior,
analyzes the data

 She uses her advanced training and uncovers an

opportunity to increase sales by changing the way an
existing product is marketed

 She pitches the findings and the idea to her superiors in

a group meeting, laying out the whole plan for what the
firm should do and why

 They send her away, as the marketing manager is

unhappy with her conclusions and doesn’t support them

 What should Sarah do now?

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
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Convincing the non-believer

 Recognize that while YOU are an expert

in this stuff, THEY are not
 Keep it simple
 Make it personal

 Research offers tactics for convincing

senior people to invest in your ideas
 Minimize conflict
 Offer proof

 Pay attention to the important role that

politics & self-interest plays in motivation
 Identify gatekeepers and roadblocks

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Convincing the non-believers:
KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid
 Chances are Sarah’s audience didn’t really
understand what she wanted to do
 They don’t understand the analytics, regressions, etc.
 The approach is different from what they understand and
are used to
 Sarah couldn’t make it clear – at a personal level – why her
managers would benefit from listening to her

 Don’t impress people with your sophistication, impress

them with your simplicity

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Convincing the non-believers:
Tell stories, make it personal
 Sarah needed tohelp her audience see past the
data and the analysis, and into the stories
 Use analogies to make novel ideas feel more familiar

 Tell a story about how novel idea changes the

audience’s job (for the better), or the consumer’s life

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
 Bill decides to contact some of Lehman’s Japanese bankers to get their thoughts
on the idea. He uses eBanker to run an employee search. The search yields two
bankers. eBanker alerts them and they have a conversation about conditions in
Asian telecom markets.

Example DILO – “Day in the Life of…”

slide 6 of 26
Viant and Lehman Brothers Confidential
+
Convincing the non-believers:
Reduce conflict
 Sarah surprised her audience and expected her
brilliant solution to sell itself
 Research on “managing up” and selling professional
services talks about the importance of previewing
your recommendations

 In addition, when faced with uncertainty, decision

makers often decide based on their impressions of
YOU

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Convincing the non-believers:
Be willing to prove it
 If
Sarah is confident in her solution, she should be
willing to bet on it
 Come to the meeting even more prepared than you
need to be – think through likely questions, know
every detail, etc.

 Be willing to test out the idea to collect data, as that

sort of data is typically the most convincing
 Make it low risk for managers to give you the
chance

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Convincing the non-believers:
Analyze your audience
 Sarah surprised her audience and expected her
brilliant solution to sell itself
 Who are the potential roadblocks, and what are their
motives?

 Who are the gatekeepers, and what do they value?

 How much novelty can your organization handle?

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Convincing the non-believers

 In
the end, it becomes a process of simplifying the
complex
 Simplify the tools & the story to make them easily
comprehensible by the unfamiliar
 Simplify the discussion by limiting surprises and
offering evidence
 Simplify the motivation by finding the benefits for
everyone in your ideas

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
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Top-Down Challenges
Reshaping your organization for analytics
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What is data analytics about?

DATA ANALYTICS

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
What is data analytics about?:
A forwards process

Data Analytic Support

Decisions ?
Inputs Models Tools

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
What is data analytics about?:
A focus on decision making
 The essence of organizations is decision making
 Particularly about resources and their allocation to
improve performance

 Data analytics is
an advanced technique for
improving decision making effectiveness
 Improving existing decision making
 Simplifying existing decision making
 Reducing knowledge required for decision making
 Allowing for new decisions to be made

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
What is data analytics about?:
A backwards process

Data Analytic Support

Decisions
Inputs Models Tools

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
What is data analytics about?:
People, processes, and incentives
 Whatare the key decisions that can be improved
through analytics?

People ProcessPeople
& Process &
& Skills Structure
& Skills Structure
Change
Processes
Incentives Incentives
& Info & Info

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Building an analytical organization:
People & Skills
 Two primary aspects of human capital relevant to
analytics:
 Do your employees have the right skills?
 To implement the analytics structure and processes

 To use the tools that you create

 Do your employees share the right beliefs about analytics?

 How to manage changes in skills and personnel:

 Attraction, Selection, Attrition
 Education and role models

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Building an analytical organization:
Processes & Structure
 Do notsimply append analytics to existing
structures
 Analysis should be at the core, not on the periphery
 Analysis often conflicts with traditional power structures

 Rebuild the organization around “evidence-based

decision making” – from the ground up
 Organize and locate key decision makers first
 Build processes that focus on data and analysis
 Meld data, experience, and authority to get effective
decision making within the firm
msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Building an analytical organization:
Incentives & Information
 Incentives donot have as obvious of a role in
transforming the organization for analytics, but are
important:
 Create incentives to use analytical tools and (most
important) to use a transparent decision making process
 Build evaluation and reward systems based on that
transparent decision making process

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
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Building an analytical organization:
Managing change
 There is a difference between the plan and the
implementation
 A clear plan and roadmap, with goals and timelines
 Initiation is a study in contradictions – both big and small to
start

 Aspects of staging a plan include priorities, tradeoffs,

and engagement

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Building an analytical organization

 Three factors –
people, process,
and incentives – are at the heart
of corporate governance

 Builda coherent plan for the People Process &

& Skills Structure
change – moving “decision
effectiveness” to the heart of
operations at all levels Incentives
& Info

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
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Where do you go from here?
A summary of analytics and change in your organization
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Barriers to analytics value are
mostly organizational
 Lack of a plan for analytics
 Organization lacks skills
 “Selling” of benefits managed
 Unable to get right data
wrong
to right decision
maker(s)  Senior resistance, based on threat

 Decision maker does not

know what to do  Lack of managerial role models

 Decision maker does not  Analytics on implemented on the

want to use the tools periphery

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Organizational challenges are
bottom-up and top-down
 Solving bottom-up challenges involves:
 Simplicity of message, analysis, and benefit
 Using stories to make the abstract clear, convey benefit
 Focus on the motivation of opponents and gatekeepers to build a
“win-win” situation for everyone

 Solving top-down challenges involves:

 Building a plan for a “decision-centric” organization
 Carefully considering plan & implementation in terms of people,
processes, and incentives
 Sequencing implementation to capture attention and build
support

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+
Concluding thoughts

 Managing change is one of the most challenging aspect of

managing organizations

 Implementation of any strategy – including analytics – has

enormous implications for value creation

 Analytics offers unique opportunity to focus on “decision-

centric” organization (culture, structure, skills, etc.)

msba@stern.nyu.edu
stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics
+

From Analysis to Decision to Strategy:

Analytics & Change in Your Organization
J.P. Eggers
NYU Stern School of Business
+
 Question and Answer
• How to Ask Questions

Use the Question box to ask questions.

Selected questions w ill be answ er ed

Professor J.P. Eggers
at the end, but you can ask at any time.

Shor t, specif ic questions, please!

Maureen McVey

44
© I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f B u s i n e s s A n a l y s i s
Contact Information
New York University Stern School of Business
Call: 001 212 998 0442
Email: msba@stern.nyu.edu
Visit: stern.nyu.edu/business-analytics

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© I n t e r n a t i o n a l I n s t i t u t e o f B u s i n e s s A n a l y s i s
For More Information
Join the conversation:
http://iiba.info/12n4GNG

Take 2 minutes to complete

the post-webinar survey

Maureen.McVey@IIBA.org

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