I teach a number of workshops and training classes designed to empower people on Business Intelligence and Business Analytics.  In each class, I survey the crowd (typically full of Business Intelligence Managers and IT professionals) as to who can clearly articulate the Strategic Goals or Strategic Initiatives of their organization.  I am always amused when only 1 or 2 hands are raised. And I wonder…why don't they have a business-driven analytics strategy?

By the way, you aren’t alone!  A group of Australian researchers, led by Timothy Devinney from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia, asked employees of 20 major Australian corporations with clearly articulated public strategies to identify their employer’s strategy from among six choices.  Yes, this was a multiple choice test.  Only 29% of the people surveyed could pick their company’s strategy, despite it being well publicized.

So, let’s look at my unscientific survey again.   I have a room full of people whose job it is to deploy solutions that lead to better decision making, and yet, they can’t articulate what the decision making is going to achieve.   That’s like running a race and not knowing where the finish line is!  So, it’s time to understand how Business Analytics relates to the corporate strategy.

I presented a session on this topic in our first Lodestar Virtual User Group and it was very well received.  If you would like to review it, check it out at http://youtu.be/BC8LsRIWhNE, or look for it on our YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/LodestarSolution.    In the video, viewers are given homework.

Go ask and discover your organization’s urpose and business-driven analytics strategy.  It will help you serve your organization, inspire you and may even get you promoted.