Peerview Data Insights

There's so much information out there about big data it's easy to get overloaded.

We sifted through as many of the insights and statistics we could find and pulled together what we think are the seven key take-aways for big data and business:

1. Companies are generating more performance data than ever before, yet only about 12% of it is being analyzed.
2. The market for business intelligence and data analysis is projected to grow from around $81 billion today to over $141 billion by 2020.
3. What does that mean for individual companies? Companies with 1000+ employees are expected to spend about $8m a year on BI & analytics; companies with less than 1000 employees are expected to spend $1.6m.
4. Why? What do companies that invest in analytics hope to get? 73% expect to increase revenue, 61% expect to improve the quality and speed of decision-making, and 57% expect to improve planning & forcasting.
5. Do they? According to Bain & Co. and Salesforce, companies that use analytics are 2x more likley to have top-quartile performance, 5x more likely to make faster decisions and 8x more likley to improve operational outcomes.
6. With findings like that, you'd think every company would analyze its performance data, but that's not the case. Why? Most cite cost and time as barriers, but a lot just don't have the expertise or tools. (Which is why we're in business.)
7. So who is using analytics? Here are adoption rates by industry.

What's your pain point?

One of the main reasons companies use our strategic management & analysis tool is to identify, isolate and address the issues that are causing them trouble.

What's interesting is that whatever specific problem the company is dealing with — high turnover, bad cash flow, an unengaging brand — it can often be traced back to the same core set of questions or challenges:

1. How fast should we grow?
2. How much revenue should we expect from our people?
3. Do our costs compare to our competitors?
4. Is our marketing right?
5. Are we missing anything obvious?

Why are these questions at the heart of so many problems?

Companies aren't as different as they think. Even though the terrain, timing and mode of transporation may differ, the destination is usually the same: a place of where growth, value and profitability are higher.

Perhaps what's more surprising than the fact that most business problems seem to be related to these five questions is the fact that most companies don't bother to integrate the asking and answering of them into their on-going planning process.

One of the main reasons companies use our strategic analysis & benchmarking tool is to get better insights out of the data they already collect so they can address pain points  — high turnover, cash flow issues, an un-engaging brand, etc.

What's interesting is that in a lot of cases the root cause of the problem isn't what they thought it would be or where they thought it would be.

How is that possible?

Even though we assign roles and responsibilities by department or functional area, nothing in business is completely isolated. Everything is linked and interconnected in such a way that all these individual actions form a giant kinematic chain in which the "movement" of one affects the "movement" of another, sometimes something that's much further down the line.

This is why a marketing problem isn't always a marketing problem, but can be a company culture problem instead. 

Or a sales problem can be a finance problem.

(The same thing is true for people, which is why knee pain is often traced back to foot problems and limited hip mobility can make your back hurt.)

How do you know when that's the case?

You don't.

That's why it's important to analyze your performance data. 

Here's an example:

One of our clients came to us because they were having turnover issues. Because we provide both "scoreboard" metrics and "differential" metrics, they were able to rule out the obvious causes: uncompetitive salaries and benefits, limited opportunities for advancement, unrealistic productivity demand, bad management, etc.

What they eventually realized was they actually had a "grass is greener" problem — their employees were leaving because they didn't realize how well the company was treating them and how strongly it was performing — which they solved by sharing their Peerview Data analysis so everyone internally could see just how green the grass really was.

The result?

Over the next two years, they cut their turnover rate in half.