Getting value from business analytics
Business analytics is rapidly becoming a key focus for us at Optimation, with a growing number of customers asking us about how they can best use and manage rich and varied data sources to make better business decisions. With that in mind, we were delighted to sponsor the recent meeting of the NZ Analytics Forum, which was held at Victoria University's Business School in Wellington.
The forum was well attended and included a good mix of those working in the field of business analytics and those looking to use analytics to assist their decision making. The central focus was on addressing the challenges and issues with data that Analytics professionals face when looking to build models or predictive analysis tools. A great interactive session was held with the entire group covering concepts such as data sovereignty, data quality issues, collection of data, and the importance of governance and privacy in ensuring that data is used in ways that do not cause damage to the brand.
Lessons from the front line
Prior to the interactive panel, Phil Bishop, Manager of Market Analytics at the Electricity Authority and James Mansell, Director of Innovation and Strategy at the Ministry for Social Development gave presentations detailing their experiences with data and analytics. The Electricity Authority acts as an independent crown entity responsible for the efficient operation of the New Zealand electricity market. Its main objective is to promote competition, reliable supply and efficient operation for the long-term benefit of consumers. One of the core roles the Market Analytics team has is to collate a series of data sources about the Electricity industry within New Zealand and provide the information via a public portal. A key focus for them in the development of this portal is how they transform basic data into insight that can be used by a number of different parties in order to promote more competition in the NZ market. Phil walked through many of these datasets and the challenges that they present, as well as looking into the solutions and technology the Electricity Authority has put into place to provide more information to the industry.
James Mansell from the Ministry of Social Development talked about the use of analytics and data visualisations in making better more effective decisions. A key challenge and focus of his role is getting different departments within the government talking more effectively to one another, including the way in which they’re able to share information and datasets. James showed off a concept for an application which joined together many different government datasets to paint a story of how at-risk people involved in the benefit or judicial systems in New Zealand had many different points throughout their childhood that, if successfully integrated in a front end application with data visualisation, could enable decision makers to dive deeper into the issues and challenges a person faced and enable them more clarity around a path of action that would work best. As you can imagine, the presentation opened up discussion around privacy issues and who actually owned the data, which was a good lead-in into the interactive panel.
As the Business Intelligence Practice Lead from Optimation, I joined the panel alongside Haydn Read, the Acting Chief Asset Officer from Wellington City Council, and Dr Scott Brooker, the Senior Modelling and Metrics Analyst from Yellow NZ. We debated a series of questions around the challenges and issues that Analytics professionals face around the collection, storage, governance and usage of data.
Business analytics challenges and opportunities
Scott gave a series of great examples around some of the challenges he faced while working with New Zealand cricket to build a statistical model which used the past five years of cricket matches to model the likely end score for a team based on the amount of wickets that had fallen and the amount of runs scored to date. Scott gave us all some valuable insights into how he had managed certain variables such as weather patterns, and how the quality of a team impacted his model. Haydn told us how Analytics were being used to identify the best maintenance patterns for the water pipes beneath Wellington City. It was interesting to hear how a changing mind-set from an engineering focus to a statistical focus had uncovered some impressive gains and real business value in optimizing the maintenance of the water system. Haydn also talked through some of the issues his team has faced collecting usable data about decades-old piping system.
The panel then opened up into an interactive discussion involving the entire audience. We covered issues such as data governance, data ownership and how to enable the use of data from both a consumer level and company level without “being creepy” with the data. The attendees agreed that there were different issues facing government sector versus private sector, as government sector ultimately would gain from better data sharing and more efficiency while the private sector had to be certain it wasn’t giving away competitive advantage.
The networking session and drinks were well attended afterwards and feedback from the event has been great. A special mention and thank you goes to Kim Frew from Harmonic, who organised the event and also moderated the panel.
About the author:
David Bloch has recently joined our Consulting team as the Business Intelligence Practice Lead. He is a specialist in Business Intelligence and Analytics, and has worked in a variety of sectors including advertising, digital marketing and media, health, FMCG and utilities. His responsibilities have included delivering Business Intelligence, Data Governance, Data Visualisation, Web Analytics and Information Architecture in both consulting and end user leadership roles.
