We recently put out a Bi survey and what we learned was pretty eye opening…. Our survey of our internal Sales and BA coaches, as well as our clients, and asked them to rank 25 potential audio programs for Business Analytics professionals. These potential programs ranged from the software selection processes to end user training, and everything in between.
First, I’m going to talk about the programs that both sides of the survey had ranked in the top 5.
Program Name | Lodestar Rank | Client Rank |
How to Inspire Executives with Business Intelligence and Analytics | 3 | 1 |
Step by Step Guide on Creating Your Business Intelligence and Analytics Roadmap | 1 | 4 |
No I didn’t forget to add any… only 2 out of 25 we ranked were within the top 5 by both clients and the Lodestar team…two very important programs in this writer’s opinion. What does this say? Before we answer that, let’s continue to look at the programs that both sides of the survey had ranked in the bottom 5.
Program Name | Lodestar Rank | Client Rank |
How to Negotiate Software Contracts | 25 | 25 |
How to Run a Software Selection Process | 20 | 24 |
How to Minimize your Reliance and Costs on Consultants | 21 | 22 |
How to Leverage Videos for Training | 24 | 20 |
We are a little more in line with the bottom five matching up four in the bottom five. One justification for the low rating on these items may be that the clients who responded already own software, and have implemented using Lodestar services where we teach clients to be self-sufficient and how to leverage videos. I wonder, if more people completed the survey that were in the process of reviewing software, would the results be different? I’m sure there are some who would argue that these could be in the top 10.
Now I want to highlight some of the major differences in Lodestar’s ranking and our clients’ ranking.
Program Name | Lodestar Rank | Client Rank |
How to Build Cost Justification / ROI for Business Intelligence and Analytics | 2 | 13 |
How to be an IT and Business Language Translator | 3 | 18 |
How to lead a Business Intelligence and Analytics team | 17 | 9 |
How to be a Business Intelligence and Analytics Ambassador | 23 | 5 |
How to Promote yourself and a Business Intelligence and Analytics expert | 16 | 3 |
While Lodestar ranked building a team with IT and Business high, our clients are more concerned with leading a team and promoting BA throughout the organization. Again, this may reflect that Lodestar clients have learned to build that bridge to the IT team and the business and now it is time to “wow” the organization with the power of Business Analytics? Earlier, I showed the two topics that Lodestar team members and our clients ranked in the top 5; Creating a Business Analytics Roadmap and Inspiring Executives. It could be argued that these topics are directly related to leading a Business Analytics team and becoming a Business Analytics ambassador; both of which would help promote someone as a Business Analytics expert. Interesting correlation in thought process, if you ask me.
Tools like IBM Cognos have been around for a long time and many organization use them daily and “get by”. It sounds like our clients want to become Business Analytics “Rock Stars” by using the power of Business Analytics and Predictive Analytics. They accomplished the basics of providing static reports or simple list reports. They want to provide highly interactive dashboards or interactive reports that supply actionable items that either save the company money or make the company money. Lodestar Solutions’ goal is to help you become the “Rock Star” in Business Analytics that you are asking to be.
So stay tuned…. exciting new programs are being created!
If you haven’t responded to our Business Analytics survey, we would love to get your feedback. Please follow this link to our brief Survey Monkey site and take our survey. We will post another blog in the near future with a full result of this survey.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RWRZ7VV
We would also love to hear any additional thoughts or ideas you might have. Please email them to services@lodestarsolutions.com.