We’re not seeing the results we wanted from our current initiatives. What did we miss?

As the CEO of your organization, you understand the vital role analytics plays in gaining a competitive edge. You built an analytics team and invested a significant amount of time and resources building a data-driven culture.

While you understand that an analytics strategy is never a ‘one-and-done’ task, it is not unreasonable that you were anticipating results more quickly than you are. If you find that your data team is unable to transform your analytics and ML/AI programs into actionable insights and scalable projects on the time table you anticipated, you are not alone. McKinsey & Associates has reported that data-driven companies are slow across the board realizing the real value advanced-analytics initiatives offers. But this doesn’t suggest stopping your data efforts, however. Rather, it’s a necessary first step towards unlocking inefficiencies and discovering new processes that will transform your business.

With that said, there are trouble spots you can act on to improve the results of your analytics programs now.

Create an Agile Data Cleansing Strategy

Many firms use the shot-gun approach to find and clean up messy data. These companies believe they should scrub all data before starting an analytics project, and many ask their data science team to accomplish this work in the course of building models and deriving insights. This approach is inefficient and causes you to track meaningless data while meaningful information slips through.

Instead of cleansing all your data, scrub information that pertains to the most valuable use cases. Your data engineering team could create a list of existing data sources and build a primary data model in conjunction with completed use cases.

Be sure to give them direction about key areas of business – capital investments under consideration, expansion discussions in the works, etc. Prioritize the areas impacting business decisions within the next year. Make it simpler for your data science and analytics teams to get to the data they need to move you forward.

Build Analytics Platforms with a Purpose

Talk to your IT and Data Science/Analytics teams about short and long-term strategies for your analytics platforms and data warehousing. While many companies think they need to integrate their current IT systems before building their platform, that may not be necessary.

Successful firms frequently run their new data platform alongside their legacy systems. Your data team can ensure that the new platform takes in new data and scrubs it. In contrast, the legacy system takes care of the company’s data transactions.

As your data program scales, what was put into place originally may no longer suffice. Work closely with your team so they can clearly scope not just for current needs, but also for business goals 5-10 years out.

Review Your Data Team

As your company has adopted data analytics, new needs and opportunities arise. The team you originally assembled may be overstretched or missing additional skills now required. The entire data enterprise depends upon the team you put in place. Rather than you having to be the expert, depend upon qualified analytics pros can who can advise you on essential elements like:

• Which data to cleanse for optimal results.
• The best ways to build a data lake.
• The best practices of filling your data repository.
• The most efficient methods of using new and current analytics platforms.

With the right data team in place, you can scale your analytics program and, in time, you will see the pay-out on the promise of analytics and more advanced uses of machine learning or AI.

Chisel Analytics can find the right data science talent to help you get your desired results from advanced analytics. Chisel vets top talent with our proprietary skill assessments across 6 key elements to ensure you hire the most qualified data scientists, visualization professionals, and data engineers for your critical needs – from project-based needs to full-time roles. We ensure that the addition is seamless, giving your company the efficiency and reliability you need.