Using data for productivity and profit

When thinking about how to improve your use of data in your organisation there are two important starting points.

First, reflect on the two halves of your business, not-for-profit or government body. One half is the operations side, the other is the value creation side. The focus of your operational side is how to get things done better, cheaper and faster. Improvements on the value creation side are about making what you do that is distinctive, better.

Second, consider Porter’s value chain. That set of activities you perform to turn your inputs into outputs and that set of secondary tasks that support those primary activities.

So, where does your use of data for improving productivity and profit come in?

And how do these two starting points come into the equation.

Consider your operational half using some aspects of the value chain. Do you know how efficient your input transformation process is? How much time lag is there between steps? What is the error rate? What of wastage, breakdowns, and the like? Do you have real-time-data-visibility into this aspect of your organisation?

And consider your value creation side, again using some aspects of the value chain. How good are the buyer-facing links in the chain (ie. sales, service, marketing) at asking questions and collecting data? Are you tracking usage of your goods and/or services for insights into improving your value creation activities?

For once you start collecting this data, you will be able to analyse for trends and patterns (ie. cluster analysis: groups of records, anomaly detection: unusual actions, and rule associations: dependencies) which will result in ideas to improve both your productivity and your profitability.

 
For more of what I have to offer, visit Dellium Advisory, follow on Twitter, connect using LinkedIn, review my strategy and futures-centric blog, or subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Advertisement