The 5 Competencies Required For Successful Omnichannel Analytics
1. DEFINING THE INSIGHTS YOU NEED
Executive: “McKinsey says we need omnichannel analytics”
Head of Analytics: “Did they tell you exactly what they want to support with those analytics and what they are?”
Executive: “No, but we need them”
Good analysts and data scientists can work miracles if they know what answers they are trying to generate. Clearly defining the core tenants of your omnichannel strategy and the insights necessary to drive them is half the battle. Seriously.
2. ANALYTIC READY DATA INTEGRATION AND MANAGEMENT
We all know there are no analytics without the data. Promotional activity and related outcome data are unique beasts to wrangle. The spectrum of tasks here runs the gamut from ensuring the contracts with your vendors include the right provisions to deliver the data you need to building the structures required for machine learning. If you don’t have a head of omnichannel data that knows what they are doing - get one.
3. DATA SCIENCE
Unless you have the resources like the investment firms to hire hundreds of insanely smart people to hand-crank linear regression models you are going to employ machine learning to get the answers you need. You will need data scientists and a well structured development process to create and deploy the machine learning models.
4. ANALYTIC OPERATIONS
Since you can’t hire hundreds of data scientists you are going to have to automate the models to deliver omnichannel insights as often as you need them. All of the process, technology, and management to do this fall under analytic operations.
5. DELIVERY
There are many stakeholders and partners who will need access to the underlying data and model results. Some examples include analysts verifying results, forecasters who need to be aware of the expected outcomes generated by different levels of activity, and direct feeds to marketing vendors with the customer lists for that week. Delivery can be considered part of analytic ops but it is big enough to warrant its own focus.
