Five Signs You Need An Analytic Service Provider
Just what that is and why it will save you frustration.
Do you have data problems? Reporting problems? Need to change the culture of your company? Are your people unable to measure the impact of their work? Do you struggle to understand your customers, your products, and your future? Is running your business just too hard and unpredictable?
If these questions are resonating with you, you may need an Analytic Service Provider. As it appears I’ve invented the term, let me explain it to you.
Analytic Service Provider (ASP)
This is an individual, or preferably a team, with expertise across the analytic spectrum. They have experience from instrumentation and data collection, through storage and architecture, through reporting and business intelligence, to analytics and forecasting. That said, you may not require them to actually do all of that. Depending on the size of your organization, they may just facilitate and advise.
ASPs have a plan. They have a process. They have discipline. It is one that bridges the gap between your business and your data. They have the technology background to guide your platforms. They have the scientific background to design your testing. They are teachers and communicators. They make data into information and they make it easy. You will rarely get this from in-house resources. If you are lucky enough to, have fun trying to retain them!
An ASP will also understand the messy bits. Data documentation, auditing, financial modeling, due diligence, and compliance are all areas where an ASP will not cut corners. In-house resources almost always do. These elements also distinguish the need for a service and not a product. Products don’t document (typically), they don’t audit, and they keep your compliance teams up at night.
Great, but we have all that… mostly. We just don’t call it an ASP. Really?! I doubt it. So let’s get to those five signs.
SIGN #1 — Who owns the data?
This is always one of my first questions to the rank and file in any organization. While executives will confidently reply, the front line folks are far more pensive. The typical answer is either — a name or nobody. Both are bad answers.
Everybody should own the data. It belongs to the company and the company is made up of everybody. If that is not the standard answer, there are plenty of issues to solve. Again, executives will force it. The front line folks won’t.
If you get an answer of nobody, you have accountability issues at a minimum and high probability that most data is unused. If the answer is Bill the IT guy or Jerry in finance, your data is far too siloed. People don’t understand it and are far less likely to use it.
SIGN #2 — How many customers do you have?
It is a simple enough question, but can you do it without a range? My favorite answer is “define customer”. Ranges, debates on definitions, or the classic “it depends on what report we are looking at” are all bad answers. If you can’t translate business terms cleanly into numbers, how can you measure anything? If you can’t define your customer, how can you serve them?
SIGN #3 — Can you show me on the daily report?
Executives will answer No, then offer a rationalization. Front line people either laugh or do an impression of a blinking goldfish. If you don’t have daily reporting, you are operating at least three decades behind the times. Daily reporting should be the cultural glue of any data-driven organization.
But we just haven’t had time to prioritize it. And that is an excellent reason to hire an ASP. Because you should, they will, and very soon the rewards will become all too obvious.
SIGN #4 — We are lagging forecasts.
When the organization is missing forecast (a term not used because you are coming in well above it), budgets tend to tighten. Unfortunately, missing forecast is often a sign that you really needed the support of an ASP. Now there are exceptions, a big client is lost, a big project is delayed, etc. Often though, it simply tells of an organization without the fundamental knowledge of their portfolio needed to forecast properly.
Whether you seek to have the ASP provide them or merely support the finance team in charge of them, ASPs can help. Just hire them before the budget collapses.
SIGN #5 — Nobody knows what anyone else does or why…
Another favorite question of mine is Can you tell me what so-and-so does? When people can’t talk to the roles of others, I know things really aren’t being measured. Organizations often try to deny silos. They seek to deny data incompetence — it is just this areas that has the problem. But data-driven companies have the measurement, documentation, ownership, and communication that should make this question terribly easy except in the most obscure of cases.
As you look these over, perhaps you believe only one applies. If that is accurate, you may be okay on your own with a subtle change or two. If, as most will, you find two or more apply, it is time to get some help. Find someone to take end-to-end ownership, to structure and organize, to audit and define, to document and communicate. It will be hard to find this in any individual you can both afford and retain. This is why I recommend a third party team to support your organization.
To enlist us:
