First Look: The second annual New Intelligent Enterprise survey

MIT Sloan Management Review conducted a large scale global survey of 4,000 executives, managers and analysts from a wide range of industries. The theme of this 27 question survey was Analytics, with a somewhat broader scope. Nina Kruschwitz, MIT Sloan Management Review’s managing editor and special projects manager, published a few interesting trends in the preview, with the full report due in Fall this year.

1. Access to Data needs Improvement: Only about 4 in 10 respondents have access to the information they want either to a great extent or completely. The majority are less satisfied with their information access — and almost 1/5 either have limited or no access to the data they need to succeed in their jobs
2. Consistency is key: Organizations are concerned that the quality of the data they use in decision making is consistent. It may be more important to have uniformly consistent data quality across the organization, rather than perfect data from one business unit and poor quality data from another
3. Walk the Talk: respondents want leaders to practice what they preach. If the organization’s leaders make fact-based decisions themselves, in service of the organization’s long-term vision, and demonstrate a willingness to share data across silos, will the rest of the organization be more willing to do the same
4. Organizations unsure how to use data: Organizations continue to struggle to understand how to use analytics to improve the business and to find the time to figure it out. Many of the challenges relate to organizational politics such as who owns the data and who has access to it
5. Not easy to integrate data: The top two challenges that organizations have in using analytics effectively are reminiscent of the challenges that companies have always cited for using business information. Integration is never an easy task, and as organizations take on bigger, bolder goals, the complexity can be overwhelming
6. Primary Business Objectives have not changed: While the top three business objectives remain the same this year compared with last, their order has changed. In 2010, innovating to achieve competitive differentiation was number one; this year it’s growing revenue. There also seems to be a new focus on expansion: Penetrating new markets and acquiring new customers are getting more attention than squeezing more out of what you already have (such as workforce performance or operating speed)
7. Technology is not the problem: Respondents believe that organizational or cultural challenges are almost twice as hard to solve as technological issues. That suggests that leaders have their work cut out for them — and underscores the need for leaders to practice what they preach before the organization is able to use analytics most effectively.

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A web site and print magazine published at the MIT Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan Management Review’s mission is to lead the conversation among thinkers, professors, and managers about the coming sea changes in management practice that will transform how people innovate and lead.

Indus Insights is a specialized consulting firm that assists organization in leveraging analytics to drive business performance. They use state-of-the-art mathematical and statistical techniques to unlock game-changing insights hidden in data; and then translate these insights into actionable strategies.

Demographic Shifts present Opportunities and Challenges

Actuaries are some of the most successful analytics practitioners when it comes to predicting future events in very specific or individual ways, so this article describing the difficulties many actuaries are having given demographic shifts and the mercurial economic climate reminds me that my own analytics ideas, whether “standard” for all projects or custom tailored to a specific model, should be reviewed and where necessary revised.

Many models I have built have excluded age as a discreet or continuous independent over concerns regarding sensitivity to outliers (sometimes it is however include with grad decade as a proxy). This article presents some interesting information that while I already knew, had never considered in respect to my work: U.S. population is working longer, pushing retirement age higher and higher.

The implications I believe are both explicit and implicit. Directly, the trend towards working longer may necessitate a change in traditional assumptions of major gift work. Often there are general demographic “sweet spots” in age, relatively consistent from institution to institution. Certainly donors in their 70’s and 80’s have different giving behavior than those in their 30’s and 40’s. You may consider these “stages” in a donor’s life where they may have different attitudes towards making a major gift, or a planned gift, etc.

I have not observed a “rule of thumb” regarding major gifts and retirement age. Some individuals like to give while still working full time, others wait until retirement “settles in”, and some even use a major gift as a “kick off” to their transition from employment to retirement. American’s working longer on average impacts all three phenomenons.

Less directly, it may be important to consider the effect of older Americans working longer on younger generations of the American work force. Certainly with a glut of highly experienced employees choosing to remain past the average age for retirement, it may be suppressing the career growth opportunities of younger generations. The boomers will retire however, and this may also produce a vacuum effect of leadership and experience. Younger generations, who may have felt stalled by the logjam “at the top” may suddenly find themselves advancing at a rate greater than predecessors.

Maybe its time I reconsider how to use this most consistent and measureable longitudinal variables in my work.

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Indus Insights is a specialized consulting firm that assists organization in leveraging analytics to drive business performance. They use state-of-the-art mathematical and statistical techniques to unlock game-changing insights hidden in data; and then translate these insights into actionable strategies.