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In a preview of his follow-up to "Competing on Analytics," co-author and business guru Tom Davenport explores what it takes to move to analytic decision-making.
informationweek.com, By Doug Henschen, January 4, 2010
The business best seller Competing on Analytics
made the case that there are big rewards for organizations that embrace data-driven decision-making. Offering a preview of his soon-to-be-released follow-up,
Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions Better Results, co-author Thomas H. Davenport , professor of information technology and management at Babson College, recaps the book's five-stage "DELTA" model for assessing and improving analytical decision-making.
What was the impetus for your new book, and why was a follow-up needed to Competing on Analytics?
I wrote the original "Competing on Analytics" article in 2006, and much to my astonishment it was the number-one reprint for Harvard Business Review that year. Then when Jeanne Harris and I released [the book] in 2007, it sold more than 100,000 copies and ended up being translated into 13 languages. Clearly the world wanted more on this topic, but we discovered that while many were interested in this idea of how you compete on analytical capabilities, there were a lot more people who said, "Our organization doesn't want to build its entire strategy around analytics, but we would like to become more analytical and make more analytical decisions." So Analytics at Work is a broader book on how you create and promote analytical capabilities even if you don't expect to be a Harrah's, Capital One, Progressive Insurance [or one of the other strategically analytic companies detailed in our first book].
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