Results Of My Quick Analytics Survey

As you may know, I have been working on a book about analytics and the data-driven cultures of companies who successfully use analytics. So, to help me in my research, I sent our a short survey to all 10,000 of my LinkedIn connections.

I asked just one question. “If the following business lines, which one is the business line in your organization that in your opinion best uses analytics when making key business decisions?”

1. Sales & Business Development
2. Marketing
3. Operations
4. Supply Chain/Inventory
5. Legal, Risk & Compliance
6. Customer Service
7. Human Resources/Recruitment
8. Strategic Planning
9. No one really uses analytics in decision-making effectively.

Thanks to all of you who replied.

Now, I’ll share my results.

7% of my 10,000 Connections
Sales & Business Development – 20%
Marketing  – 17%
Operations  – 15%
Strategic Planning  – 14%
No One Uses Analytics Well  – 10%
Customer Service  – 9%
Human Resources/Recruitment – 7%
Supply Chain/Inventory – 4%
Legal, Risk & Compliance – 3%

To no surprise about a third of my connections indicated that Sales, Business Development and Marketing where the top users of analytics in their business. Using analytics to help track success in growing the business and making a profit is nothing new.

As expected, HR/Recruitment was not well represented. Given I will be conducting a training on Analytics Techniques for HR & Recruitment in a few weeks, this shows I’m spot on about the biggest need right now.

My U.S. Based LinkedIn Connections
Sales & Business Development – 18%
Marketing – 18%
Operations – 14%
No One Uses Analytics Well-  14%
Strategic Planning – 13%
Human Resources/Recruitment – 7%
Supply Chain/Inventory – 5%
Legal, Risk & Compliance – 5%
Customer Service – 5%

The most significant difference I saw when breaking our just U.S. based connections was that Customer Service was so low. Given how metrics rich most customer service environments are,  I suspect the low ranking was mainly due to the fact that nothing cutting edge or amazing is going on in this area for the most part.

I was also surprised to see that 14% of American respondents listed No One Uses Analytics well as the top answer. Still a lot of opportunity here in the U.S. for analytics coaching and training.

My Philippines Based LinkedIn Connections
Strategic Planning – 22%
Sales & Business Development – 19%
Marketing – 14%
Operations – 14%
Customer Service – 11%
No One Uses Analytics Well – 11%
Supply Chain/Inventory – 3%
Legal, Risk & Compliance – 3%
Human Resources/Recruitment – 3%

Given that a significant percentage of my LinkedIn connections work in HR and/or Recruitment in the Philippines, I was both surprised and intrigued by the fact that it scored lowest on the analytics survey.

So if you just happen to be in that 97%, then I have a great opportunity for you. I will be doing training in two weeks on this very topic

Let me throw out a little disclaimer, this survey is really just for directional purposed and is far from the scientifically sound type of survey I would recommend in most situations. But my goal was to validate my  recent observation, that we still have  a long way to go before analytics has taken deep roots in HR and Recruitment in the Philippines.