Leading With Data· a Bicycle Guide

Partial book profile

Analytics at work smarter decisions, better results

Davenport, Thomas H., 1954-, Harris etc.

A practical how-to guide showing how any organization can build sustainable, enterprise-wide analytical capabilities to make smarter, fact-based decisions and achieve better business results.

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What it’s about

Most companies sit on massive amounts of data yet fail to use it meaningfully, relying instead on managers' intuition or 'golden gut' for roughly 40 percent of major decisions. Analytics at Work shows how all managers—not just elite analytical competitors like Harrah's or Capital One—can deploy analytics one business decision at a time. Building on the five-factor DELTA framework (Data, Enterprise, Leadership, Targets, Analysts) and a five-stage maturity model, the authors provide frameworks, assessment tools, and richly illustrated examples from firms like Humana, Best Buy, Progressive Insurance, and Hotels.com. The book explains not only how to build analytical capability but how to sustain it: embedding analytics in business processes, cultivating an analytical culture, and continuously reviewing models and assumptions so they stay relevant as conditions change. It is a compass rather than a rigid map for turning data into a competitive organizational capability.

The through-line

Who it’s for
A manager or leader who wants to make smarter, fact-based decisions and unleash the potential buried in the organization's data to improve business performance.
The problem
The organization collects and stores massive amounts of data but fails to use it effectively, leaving money on the table and making decisions on intuition rather than facts. They feel uncertain whether they are as analytical as they should be, worried they are missing opportunities and falling behind competitors who use data more effectively.
The plan
  1. Assess your organization's current analytical maturity across the five DELTA factors using the stage model as a map.
  2. Get accessible, high-quality data in order and identify unique, proprietary data you can exploit.
  3. Adopt an enterprise perspective, coordinating data, technology, and analysts rather than working in silos.
  4. Cultivate analytical leadership at every level and pick strategic targets where analytics make the biggest difference.
  5. Recruit, motivate, organize, and deploy analytical talent effectively.
The payoff
The organization makes better strategic, tactical, and operational decisions grounded in facts. · Decisions are faster, more consistent, and produce better business results and profitability. · Analytics are embedded in everyday processes and a fact-based culture thrives across the enterprise.

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