MIT Sloan Management Review Article on How Organizations Can Build Analytics Agility

Companies must increase their analytical fitness and develop strong muscle memory when they are tested by disruptive events.

In an era of constant change, companies’ data and analytics capabilities must rapidly adapt to ensure that the business survives, never mind competes. Organizations seek insights from their data to inform strategic priorities in real time, yet much of the historical data and modeling formerly applied to predict future behavior and guide actions are proving to be far less predictive, or even irrelevant, in our current normal with COVID-19.

In order to survive through crises, proactively detect trends, and respond to new challenges, companies need to develop greater analytical agility. This agility comes from three areas: improving the quality and connections of the data itself, augmenting analytical “horsepower” at the organization level, and leveraging talent that is capable of bridging business needs with analytics to find opportunity in the data.