Guiding the integration of analytics in business operations through a maturity framework

Abstract

The analytics function is growing in importance as the digitisation of business operations and markets leads to the generation of ever-increasing amounts of data. Analysing this data in a manner aligned with company priorities and structures can generate value through supporting effective decision-making, rapid product innovation, supply chain visibility and other aspects of intra- and inter-company operations. To guide the growth we derive a novel maturity framework focused on driving the Analytics-Business alignment, covering a number of diverse organisational facets such as data, leadership support, processes, data management, governance, technology and people. It differentiates itself by using a firm theoretical foundation and providing guidance for analytics capability development instead of simply diagnosing the existing maturity level. To guide development, it distinguishes between two aspects of maturity – a “state” aspect, which is used to assess the present situation in an organisation, and a “management” aspect, which evaluates management attitude in order to establish the next stage of analytics growth. The framework has been implemented in a web-based tool and its utility has been demonstrated by obtaining feedback from 64 managers from a variety of sectors, who have praised its ability to integrate diagnosis of the current situation with guidance on the next steps necessary to develop analytics maturity.