Big Data, Big Innovation

Your business generates reams of data, but what do you do with it? Reporting is only the beginning. Your data holds the key to innovation and growth – you just need the proper analytics. In Big Data, Big Innovation: Enabling Competitive Differentiation Through Business Analytics, author Evan Stubbs explores the potential gold hiding in your un-mined data. As Chief Analytics Officer for SAS Australia/New Zealand, Stubbs brings an industry insider's perspective to guide you through pattern recognition, analysis, and implementation.

Big Data, Big Innovation: Enabling Competitive Differentiation Through Business Analytics details a groundbreaking approach to ensuring your company's upward trajectory. Use this guide to leverage your customer information, financial reports, performance metrics, and more to build a rock-solid foundation for future growth.

• Build an effective analytics team, and empower them with the right tools
• Learn how big data drives both evolutionary and revolutionary innovation, and who should be responsible
• Identify data collection and analysis opportunities and implement action plans
• Design the platform that suits your company's current and future needs
• Quantify performance with statistics, programming, and research for a more complete picture of operations

Effective management means combining data, people, and analytics to create a synergistic force for innovation and growth. If you want your company to move forward with confidence, Big Data, Big Innovation: Enabling Competitive Differentiation Through Business Analytics can show you how to use what you already have and acquire what you need to succeed.

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xvii

Part One May You Live in Interesting Times 1

Chapter 1 Lead or Get Out of the Way 3

The Future is Now 3

The Secret is Leadership 5

Notes 7

Chapter 2 Disruption as a Way of Life 9

The Age of Uncertainty 10

The Emergence of Big Data 15

Rise of the Rōnin 21

The Knowledge Rush 26

Systematized Chaos 31

Notes 36

Part Two Understanding Culture and Capability 41

Chapter 3 The Cultural Imperative 47

Intuitive Action 48

Truth Seeking 55

Value Creation 62

Functional Innovation 69

Revolutionary Disruption 75

Notes 78

Chapter 4 The Intelligent Enterprise 79

Level 1: Unstructured Chaos 80

Level 2: Structured Chaos 84

Levels 3–5: The Intelligent Enterprise 89

Notes 93

Part Three Making It Real 95

Chapter 5 Organizational Design 101

What Should It Look Like? 102

What Should It Focus On? 107

What Services Can It Offer? 111

What Data Does It Need? 116

Note 124

Chapter 6 Operating Models 125

What’s the Goal? 127

What’s the Enabler? 135

How Does It Create Value? 140

Notes 148

Chapter 7 Human Capital 149

What Capabilities Do I Need? 150

How Do I Get the Right People? 157

How Do I Keep Them? 162

Notes 164

Part Four Making It Happen 167

Chapter 8 Innovating with Dynamic Value 169

The Innovation Cycle 170

The Innovation Paradox 172

The Secret to Success: Dynamic Value 176

The Innovation Engine 181

Reinventing the Rōnin 185

Notes 189

Chapter 9 Creating a Plan 191

Starting the Conversation 191

Defining the Vision 193

Identifying Opportunities 196

Mapping Responsibilities 198

Taking It to the Next Level 201

Note 201

Conclusion: The Final Chapter is Up to You 203

Glossary 205

About the Author 219

Index 221

EVAN STUBBS is the Chief Analytics Officer for SAS Australia/New Zealand and a board member of the Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia. He has driven innovation within General Motors, transformed organizations into analytical competitors, and advises leadership teams globally on how to survive the upcoming storm.

We live in interesting times–we’ve never been so data rich yet insight poor. We’re so awash in data that we’ve invented new computing paradigms and systems merely to keep pace. The new normal is strange, and the disruption big data analytics implies will shake industry, society, and even our day-to-day lives.

Businesses that embrace this new way of thinking will survive. Those that don’t will perish. In this epoch of rapid change, failure to capitalize on the value that lies in data is perilous–the future is now and it demands action. Big Data, Big Innovation: Enabling Competitive Differentiation through Business Analytics brings an urgent voice to the need for businesses to embrace a new way of thinking and provides practical instructions on using big data analytics to support innovation throughout your organization.

Evan Stubbs illuminates big data analytics like no one else does. With an insider’s view into the reality of what businesses are doing and what is possible with the right approach, Stubbs links big data to innovation and differentiation. This groundbreaking approach will help IT managers and executives learn faster, act faster, act smarter, and more to compete and survive.

Taking a hands-on approach, this playbook addresses not only the practicalities of big data and analytics but also the culture that needs to exist to be successful. Answering the questions often asked, this guide outlines how to identify opportunities, assemble teams and hire new specialists, cultivate the proper mindset to create a corporate incubator for data analytics progress and success, and design solutions that work in the real world.

With its step-by-step approach to the massive undertaking of making big data a differentiator, the book addresses every major consideration throughout the process. Further guidance is provided once the corporate culture and programs have reached maturity to ensure continued success and the proper approach to sustaining a competitive edge.

We live in interesting times–we've never been so data rich yet insight poor. We're so awash in data that we've invented new computing paradigms and systems merely to keep pace. The new normal is strange, and the disruption big data analytics implies will shake industry, society, and even our day-to-day lives.

Businesses that embrace this new way of thinking will survive. Those that don't will perish. In this epoch of rapid change, failure to capitalize on the value that lies in data is perilous–the future is now and it demands action. Big Data, Big Innovation: Enabling Competitive Differentiation through Business Analytics brings an urgent voice to the need for businesses to embrace a new way of thinking and provides practical instructions on using big data analytics to support innovation throughout your organization.

Evan Stubbs illuminates big data analytics like no one else does. With an insider's view into the reality of what businesses are doing and what is possible with the right approach, Stubbs links big data to innovation and differentiation. This groundbreaking approach will help IT managers and executives learn faster, act faster, act smarter, and more to compete and survive.

Taking a hands-on approach, this playbook addresses not only the practicalities of big data and analytics but also the culture that needs to exist to be successful. Answering the questions often asked, this guide outlines how to identify opportunities, assemble teams and hire new specialists, cultivate the proper mindset to create a corporate incubator for data analytics progress and success, and design solutions that work in the real world.

With its step-by-step approach to the massive undertaking of making big data a differentiator, the book addresses every major consideration throughout the process. Further guidance is provided once the corporate culture and programs have reached maturity to ensure continued success and the proper approach to sustaining a competitive edge.