The Value of Business Analytics: Identifying the Path to Profitability

INTRODUCTION

Change is challenging. Because a significant component of business analytics revolves around encouraging an organization to change existing practices, it is important to consider how change can be encouraged.

In practice, there are three main ways of encouraging an individual to change:

1. Control

2. Persuasion

3. Influence

Even though control is sometimes a direct means of encouraging change, more often than not the scope of control is limited to the person doing the controlling. It is extremely difficult (and often futile) to tell someone to change without the person’s agreement.

Most change is enacted through applying persuasion and influence. People need to be persuaded that a change will be beneficial. Equally, people can be influenced to go along with a change even if they do not necessarily agree with it.

Persuasion and influence both require an understanding of what the change entails. They also require reasons why the change is worthwhile. And finally, these reasons must also be relevant and comprehensible. If they are not, they will be ignored.

Communicating the value proposition from business analytics involves taking the objective measures identified in Chapter 4 and translating them into a contextually relevant and comprehensible framework within an organization. An ideal communication strategy makes the information personally relevant, provides motivation, and acknowledges tacit cultural factors that aid in decision making.

When personal relevancy ...