Last week Analysis Team President Dave Stark presented “Does Analytics Need All the Buzz to be Successful?” at the University of California – Berkeley Fisher Center Summit for Business Analytics. The annual conference is organized by the Fisher Center for Business Analytics of the Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley.
In his conference session on September 27 Dave discussed how metrics that are relevant, understandable, timely and actionable can focus decision-makers on the right challenges and deliver game-changing results. At a time when Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are getting significant attention and investment, straightforward and simpler analytics can still be very powerful and have huge impact on the bottom line.
“There’s a lot of opportunity in all companies to improve and deploy straightforward business metrics that are easily understood and adopted by decision-makers,” Dave said. “Understandability leads to adoption, which leads to results. AI and ML are incredibly powerful, but they can be ‘black boxes’ to many people and that’s a hurdle for practical adoption.”
In his session Dave presented the business case of a $16 billion fashion retailer that updated its product cost and margin metrics across all product groups and made them available on demand to merchandisers, supply chain managers and others during the product planning cycle. For this retailer, the financial benefits included an improvement in overall product gross margins by around $300 million in the first year, and growth in earnings per share (EPS) over succeeding quarters while revenue remained flat.
“The right measures delivered at the right time make key business drivers visible, at the point when they can be impacted to change results in a big way,” Dave summarized.
The Berkeley – Fisher Center Summit for Business Analytics is an annual conference attended by CIOs and other senior IT management practitioners to discuss the latest trends in business analytics, including Business Intelligence, predictive analytics, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The conference takes place on the campus of UC Berkeley.
If you’d like to receive a copy of Dave’s presentation, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Info@AnalysisTeam.com.
About Analysis Team, Inc.
Founded in 1995, Analysis Team, Inc. is a leading provider of Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) consulting services. The firm deploys solutions that support business performance analysis, financial planning and management reporting, helping clients to drive strategic business growth. More information is available at www.AnalysisTeam.com.
About The Fisher Center for Business Analytics
The Fisher Center for Business Analytics at the Berkeley Haas School of Business “advances the creation of business value from data science” and “pursues its vision through research, education, and accelerating the diffusion and adoption of analytics throughout all aspects of business and management.” The Center’s programs include research, education and partnering with industry on topics of analytics related to operations, sales, finance, customers, public policy and other areas.