- Every company is a data company, whether they like it or not.
- The risks of being an "analytics early adopter" are nothing compared to the gains.
- The biggest gains come from getting analytics out of the hands of statisticians and into the hands of decision-makers.
- To be accessible, insights should be readable, shareable and actionable.
- You don’t have to start big. You can start small and scale.
- The key is to make sure you start now, because the performance impacts of being "data-driven" increase over time: according to McKinsey & Co., the profitability gains from big data investments are 6% in the short term, but increase to 9% in the long term.
- There are three key roles to successful adoption, though none need be full-time in the beginning: owners, facilitators and evangelists. Owners are senior leadership. They decide what to do and when to do it. Facilitators are the ones who actually go and do it. Evangelists then spread the word about it. Owners and facilitators are usually evangelists, too, but evangelists can be just about anyone who gets it — a CEO, a junior partner, a frontline manager or even a client.
- Customized solutions, proprietary calculations and exotic metrics can be useful, but most companies will get great insights analyzing the data they already collect.
- Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
- Data can drive decisions, but it can't make them. That's why it's important to position big data, analytics and benchmarking as powerful tools to assist people, not scary ways to replace them.