Category: Business Strategy with Analytics

Monetize Our Content

It really is not that hard to create a lot of content.

Maybe for me it’s easier than most because I like to talk, I like to write, I like to share and I like to educate.

But it’s still not as hard as so many other things people do every day to make money.

What is hard is creating content that is engaging. That enables curiosity and bring an emotional response. Content that is truly enchanting is rare.

If you can create engaging content, then you should be monetizing it.

There are so many ways to make money off of good content. Sometimes it takes some creativity. Sometimes it takes extra effort. Occasionally you have to spend money upfront to make money long term.

For DMAI we have a lot of content. Here is how we monetize it.

Books are the most traditional method. Given the amount of writing I have done on analytics these past few years, there is enough content for a half dozen books. And there are hundreds more in my head. Publishing a book and selling it on the side at speaking engagements is a nice, but fairly inconsistent revenue stream. But it is a good place to start.

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E-Books is less costly than traditional books, but as whole still far popular. Getting people to pay for online content remains a very elusive prospect for most content creators. Still having that option available will add a little more revenue over time for very little cost.

Online only content for sale is another option. One I have as of yet, not tried. But again if there is a such a needs for analytics training and the ability to speak in person is limited, then providing online only content for a reasonable fee makes a lot of sense.

Webinars and videos are additional online revenue options. Getting people to pay for a series of online trainings is not something I have seem work with much success. YouTube kinda makes that nearly impossible. But in some cases, where you an offer a high quality production that delivers as well as the in person trainings do is something that some people would pay for. Need to look into this one some more.

Still though, the best money maker for DMAI is the fees I get when speaking or conducting training. The market price for these events continues to rise as the reality of their not being enough analytics experts to go around combines with the pressure people feel to get more out of their time and look to analytics as the solution.

That is why we are already planning our 2017 training schedule, blocking off dates for big events and getting on the calendars of companies looking for in house training.

Monetizing our content is not hard, it just takes sticking to a plan.

Small Business Analytics – The field of small business analytics is just starting to blossom as companies are looking for more data-driven decision-making to prosper in the age of Big Data. DMAIPH is at the fore front of providing analytics training, consulting and outsourcing options to small businesses. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to set up a free consultation on how to get more analytics in your small business.

 

 

Get In Front of People

The single biggest asset to my business is me.

Knowing this helps guide my strategic plan.

The more I am in front of people talking about analytics the more the business will prosper.

The more people who here me talk about analytics will get excited and start believing they can master analytics too.

The more attendees, trainees and audiences who learn something from me, the more referrals to follow.

Branding for any company is all about building something that sticks in the minds of its customers as it also attracts new customers. Great brands don’t have to market themselves as much as they do just continue to do what they do best.

That has always been the goal of DMAI. To market me to the point where we are the name brand in analytics in the Philippines.

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Analytics is something every business needs, but most businesses struggle with. It not easy to use data to empower better decision-making. The boom in big data makes it more challenging. The dearth of analytics talent available makes it seem impossible to many business leaders.

So that is why we need to get me in front of them. To show them how they can unlock their data to tap new prospects and discover new opportunities.

Once they have a sense its not as daunting as they thought, once they feel they can do what I do too, then our brand gains power. With each interaction between me and those who need me, we level up.

That is how we execute our master strategic plan. That’s why #IamDMAI

Small Business Analytics – The field of small business analytics is just starting to blossom as companies are looking for more data-driven decision-making to prosper in the age of Big Data. DMAIPH is at the fore front of providing analytics training, consulting and outsourcing options to small businesses. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to set up a free consultation on how to get more analytics in your small business.

Stick to the Primary Goal

When you start feeling like you are going in several directions at once, but you are not happy with the progress you are making overall, then you need to sit down and do some strategy planning.

It has been awhile since I added some structure to what we are doing with DMAI so we don’t spend time doing things that don’t drive us towards  our primary goal.

The primary goal of DMAI is to bet the name brand when it comes to analytics in the Philippines. The reason we exist is to take advantage of the huge gap between supply and demand when it comes to analytics talent in the Philippines labor pool.

In the past few years the demand for analytics talent has boomed at a rate that has far outpaced efforts to attract, train and empower the supply. The past year or so has seen a great number of new players enter into the analytics and data science training space, but it is not enough to meet the global demand for analytics that the Philippines is caught up in.

As I add more and more data scientist and analysts every day on LinkedIn, I am seeing a pattern that is both concerning and exciting. Like in the U.S. and across the globe, the number of data science and analyst jobs mushrooms, but by and large the people filling the openings lack the experience to really be effective at them. Which of course means they will need more training. DMAI is in a good place to address this opportunity.

We have worked hard on building the brand and getting the name out. Working with key business partners to speak at conferences, conduct public training workshops and appear in the media has given us a lot of access. The amount of content we have created between social media, blogs, training materials and now books adds to our ability to share content.

So for the next 18 months, we will be asking ourselves every day this simple question. Is what we are doing right not working towards that goal of being the name brand in analytics in the Philippines? If not, then it’s not a priority no matter how much money it makes or how important it seems.

There can be only one top dog. And the dog’s name is DMAI.
#IamDMAI

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Small Business Analytics – The field of small business analytics is just starting to blossom as companies are looking for more data-driven decision-making to prosper in the age of Big Data. DMAIPH is at the fore front of providing analytics training, consulting and outsourcing options to small businesses. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to set up a free consultation on how to get more analytics in your small business.

 

Aligning Strategic Business Insights Through HR Analytics

I recently gave a talk about Aligning Strategic Business Insights Through HR  Analytics to a group of HR and Recruitment Managers and Senior Professionals.

Learning Session Description
From sourcing, through hiring, beyond training and towards retention, the best HR teams know their data and use it to stay focused on the overall strategy of the organization.  This learning session is designed for HR and Recruitment professionals to identify key data points and be exposed to analytic techniques  that are paramount to successfully aligning HR to a strategic business plan.

Learning Session Objectives
The specific objectives of this unique fun-filled learning experience were;

  • Be exposed to cutting edge analytic techniques being used by successful HR and Recruitment Team in the Philippines and abroad.
  • Gain a deeper understanding of what key metrics and data points add value to HR teams as they use data to align business strategy.
  • Be empowered to produce actionable reports that give decision-makers the right data at the right time to ensure a more solid business strategy.

Key Benefits from Attending this Learning Session
 In this session, your organization was able to:

  1. Define the most important data points to the organization’s strategic plan.
  2. Develop an analytics strategy around how to better use data in decision-makin
  3. Deliver new analytics techniques to the rest of their team to better align HR and Recruitment with the core business strategy.

In this session, your participants were able to:

  • Identify key data points within their HR and Recruitment business data.
  • Learn how to bring these data points into an inventory that allows quicker and more powerful analysis.
  • Integrate these data points and analysis into management reports full of actionable insights.

Who Should Attend

This session is suitable to a wide range of professionals but will greatly benefit:

  • Executives, Managers and Business Leaders who are looking to empower their HR and Recruitment teams to use more data analysis in their strategic planning.
  • HR and Recruitment Managers who use data and analytics as well as employee analysts to help in strategic planning and business optimization.
  • HR and Recruitment Supervisors and Team Leaders who use data and analysis to manage their teams and implement strategy.
  • Analysts working with HR and recruitment data who add value to the overall HR strategy though their reporting and analysis.

Learning Session Outline

This session was broken into 4 key areas:

  1. Cutting Edge HR Analytics
  2. Finding the Right Data
  3. Key Analytic Techniques
  4. Actionable Reporting

Teams that are successful in each of these 4 areas, will be ahead of the game when it comes to keeping HR at the forefront of defining, aligning and implementing business strategy.

Learning Session Process

This session utilized a variety of proven adult learning techniques to ensure maximum understanding, comprehension and retention of the information presented. This includes thought provoking discussions and analytics solutions presentations.

I can do the same thing for an in-house training for your business. You can either connect with me directly or get in touch with Ariva Events Management for a free consultation on how to get started.

HR & Recruitment Analytics – The recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. DMAIPH is a leading expert in empowering HR & Recruitment teams with analytics techniques to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn how to get more analytics in your HR & Recruitment process so you can rise to the top in the ever quickening demand for top talent.

Only Data Dinosaurs Promise “One Day” or “On the Spot” Hiring

In the ever quickening world of BPO companies in the Philippines, the latest recruitment slogans promise One Day or On the Spot Hiring. I even saw one today that promised a coaching session on how to pass the interview before the interview. Crazy. Like the last dinosaurs, these big companies are making a futile effort to avoid extinction.

Anyone ever involved in recruitment will tell you, that its hard enough to find good candidates, but trying to find rock stars with a one day, end to end, recruitment process is ludicrous. Not using more data and analytics in their process, will lead them to walk with the dinosaurs.

When it comes to trying to compress the recruitment process cutting edge companies look to technology and data analysis to help them narrow the field and make quicker hires. While dinosaurs just through more manpower at the problem. They ramp up with staffing staff and take shortcuts in skills assessment, candidate fit and potential success to meet the ever increasing demand for talent.

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When you see the headlines promising one day hires, you look at the companies and see they are doing things like its still the Jurassic Era. Resume screening in mass, scaled down skills tests and group final interviews. No demographic profiling, no analysis of the candidates distance to work or difficulty of commute, no predictive modeling based on candidate data to show likelihood of employee success. Its like watching a bad sci-fi movie about dinosaurs taking over the planet. It will not end well.

In today’s hyper competitive job market, only the companies who evolve to using more intelligent recruitment methods will prevail. The rest will someday take their place in a museum of failed BPO companies from the early 21st century.

And its not that expensive, not is it really that hard to invest in analytics solutions. The cost of ramping up and hiring more people to do hiring  is always more costly over time then a good business intelligence tool.

Instead of shortening your process to stave off eventual extinction, evolve your business to get with the times. Don’t end up like everyone else offering the promise of expedient hiring to fill seats, that in the end just need to be filled again and again. Hire a recruitment analytics expert, have them dig into your data and come up with a smarter solution.

I can show you how. I have helped dozens of BPO companies come up with analytics solutions that help them avoid the trap of one day hiring. Connect with me if you want to survive.

HR & Recruitment Analytics – The recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. DMAIPH is a leading expert in empowering HR & Recruitment teams with analytics techniques to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn how to get more analytics in your HR & Recruitment process so you can rise to the top in the ever quickening demand for top talent.

Key Analytics Essentials For HR Success

A few months back, I had the pleasure to be one of the resources speakers at the HR Congress. Put on my good friends at Ariva Events Management, the event was at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City, Philippines.

This HR Congress aimed to provide Industry Updates, Expert Insights, Good Practices and Experiences, and Practical Knowledge; generate thought-provoking and challenging discussions; and encourage professional networking and strategic partnership among stakeholders, if only to further the HR Agenda supportive of the organizational targets.

A primary goal was to cross-examine the major HR Trends quickly moving forward and impinging on the business in developing an effective ‘Employer of Choice’ branding. The Congress also shared how to develop employees to optimize their potentials; and build an emotionally-committed multi-generational team.

The Two-Day Event covered Six Essential Cores in People Management, each one with a tie into my favorite topic… analytics.

1. Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM)
Overview of the business environment vis-à-vis the changing roles and functions of Human Resources in general. With so much data now available, its much easier for HR times to decide where to spend their time and focus. Without good HR analytics you might as well be fumbling around in the dark

2. Human Resources Information System (HRIS)
Overview of tools and appropriate support structures for administering HR-related information. This aims to impart knowledge and skills in managing information resources to support basic records management and people administration. A reality is that most of us are still using MS Excel to manage talent pipelines and HR data. So learning how to use more cutting edge technology is key to being successful in the Information Age.

3. Employee Selection
Methods of employee selection and concepts in forecasting and identifying competencies; an Interview Guide may be developed that will assist in spotting competencies to match people needs. There is so much competition out there right now. The supply is far outweighed when it comes to top talent. You need to turn lose your business data to help you attract, hire and retain while others deal with massive turnover and low employee engagement.

4. Performance and Rewards Management
Case studies and exercises, concepts in managing employee performance; pay and benefits Learners will be able to hone skills in performance planning, performance assessment, coaching and giving performance feedback. All this generates massive amounts of data that can be turned into valuable insights.

5. Employee Development
Skills in determining employee development needs; different training and development interventions; participants are expected to come up with an employee development plan. It is getting harder and harder to keep good people around. SO, you need to use your data and a good HR analytics solution to make sure you are giving your employees the exact opportunities they demand, before they jump ship.

6. Employee Relations and Well-Being
Equipping participants with the know-how in employee relations including basic labor laws and managing employee organizations. Employee well-being issues such as employee stress and burnout, smoking, and work-life balance will also be covered. This area is often very manual and rarely included in a good analytics solution. That doesn’t have to be the case.

SO, as you can see their in an analytics solution to just about any issue facing HR. In fact, the recruitment and retention of top talent is the biggest challenge facing just about every organization. DMAIPH is a leading expert in empowering HR & Recruitment teams with analytics techniques to optimize their talent acquisition and management processes. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn how to get more analytics in your HR & Recruitment process so you can rise to the top in the ever quickening demand for top talent.

You can also reach out to my key business partner, Ariva Events Management to request an in-house training featuring me as your resource speaker.

What ever you do, make sure you optimize your use of data and analytics in your HR decision-making processes. If you don’t your organization will face a much more challenging path then ones who do.

 

Why Analytics Projects Fail – #10: Key People Leave

One of the toughest analytics challenges to fix is when key people leave. This reason is another people problem, but with a technology bent. Depending on the importance of the person(s) who leaves, you can experience anything from a minor hiccup to a total meltdown of your project.

One example of this is when the one who built the database leaves. Often they take their unique knowledge of the data structure with them.  Another example is when the systems architect who knows the ins and outs of where the data flows departs. This can make it difficult to track down errors and bugs. Lastly,  the database admin who wrote the code might be the one who quits, taking with them all their coding work. I can even be worse if they leave on bad terms and take a key piece of your development work with them or even destroy it.

In general, the best outcome you can hope for is to is build workarounds that allow you to keep the project going, however sometimes you are better off just starting over or worst case you just live with what you have. So step one is seeing where you are in the process and then determining what it would take to replace that person.

If you are able to continue, then you need to start doing a better job of documenting and making sure information is shared so this won’t happen again. I learned this lesson early in my career. Learn all you can about all aspects of the data environment and document them. A lot of times a clear understanding and documentation will be required by management to assure funding and resources.

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If you have to stop the project until you can find a replacement, then you should also learn, document and share everything so that the new person can pick things up as soon as possible.

In this case, the new person will likely be dependent on you to learn the ropes so use that opportunity to change your culture to be more open.

A final point to add, make sure you understand why the person left.

If there are things you can do to make sure the same thing does not happen again then it is on you to do just that. If it is a cultural thing, then you can be a catalyst for change. If its a compensation thing, then you can help define the expected scope of work and help in the compensation planning. If they left because of a personality conflict, then you can help find someone who will fit in better. Analysts have so much power to shape conversations. Use it.

Analytics Culture – The key to using analytics in a business is like a secret sauce that fuels Data-Driven Decison-Making. It is a unique combination of analytics talent, technology and technique that are brought together to enrich and empower an organization.

A successful analytics culture is not easy to create, but DMAIPH can show you how. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can build a strategic plan to turn your company into analytics driven success story.

Why Analytics Projects Fail – #8: Lack of Resources

To start with a lack of resources should probably be called lack of time. Lack of time to design an effective strategy. Lack of time to find the right talent. Lack of time to get everyone on the same page.  We are all just too busy and have too much to do. We say lack of resources, but mostly we mean our team doesn’t have time.

A lot of times you hear about failures with analytics projects is because of lack of resources. When I hear about this, I always ask for a better definition of what is meant by lack of resources. Is it lack of leadership support, lack of funding, lack of strategy, lack of focus and vision, lack of talent? They are all often disguised as lack of resources.

In each of the previous seven blogs in this series I talked about a reason why analytics projects fail and since they can all fall under the boarder lack of resources, let’s do a quick recap.

  1. Lack of Focus – People are not on the same page
  2. Lack of Vision – People don’t know where this is going
  3. Lack of Management Support – People don’t know who to follow
  4. Lack of a Champion – People have no one to cheer lead
  5. Lack of Organizational Support – People don’t really care
  6. Lack of Funding – People don’t want to waste money on this
  7. Lack of Talent – People can’t do the job

There are all people driven reasons for why your project may be in danger of failing. They are all fixable using people skills. This is why I often argue a good analyst who can communicate is worth more than a great analyst who cannot. The reasons why analytics projects most often fail is human, not technological.

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In the end, for whatever of the reasons above, your project is in jeopardy, it will be up to you to show people why they should invest the time needed to get things back on track.

You have to push for focus, share the vision, educated your managers, become a champion, gain organizational support, secure funding and align the right talent to make things work.

I have been in this situation numerous times. In every situation the one constant variable that changed possible failure into a success was me. Bring a truly great analyst means showing people how your project will be a solution to their problems and is well worth their investment of time.

When you do this, they you won’t be in a place where lack of resources dooms your analytics project.

#IamDMAI

Analytics Culture – The key to using analytics in a business is like a secret sauce that fuels Data-Driven Decison-Making. It is a unique combination of analytics talent, technology and technique that are brought together to enrich and empower an organization.

A successful analytics culture is not easy to create, but DMAIPH can show you how. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can build a strategic plan to turn your company into analytics driven success story.

Why Analytics Projects Fail – #7: Lack of Talent

When analytics projects fail due to lack of talent, this is generally symptomatic of a bigger cause. Lack of talent is something that can be much harder to fix then just hiring someone.

One of the reasons behind the lack of talent may be a misunderstanding of the project by senior leadership or just an overall lack of management support. As I mentioned in a previous blog, the best thing you can do is work with a senior leader to help them understand what level of talent is needed. When you do this you can enhance your analytics solutions and have them advocate for you to get the right talent.

Lack of vision and/or focus by your organization can also result in not having the right talent available for the job. It might not even be the analyst, but the it might be something missing within the development team or the project implantation team. This generally ends up with analytics solutions being full of patchwork shortcuts that limit their impact.

Lack of funding can also be an issue, where your organization just can’t offer a competitive package to the available talent. This is becoming even more of an issue lately as good analytics talent is in high demand and the supply can’t come close to keeping up.

Having the right analyst, with the right skills sets, the right training and the right tools aligned to give your business a good analytics solution misfires a lot. There are hundreds of business intelligence tools, thousands of types of databases, all generating very unique reports. When one of these elements does not match up it can easily cause a failure due to lack of talent.

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My suggestion if you think you have a lack of talent problem is draw some kind of process flow. Who are all the players in each part of the process? What applications are used to collect, store, analyze and report your data? What programming or language skills are required?  When you lay all this out then you have an idea of what skills and experience your analyst needs. Combine this with the people side of the job, what communication skills, what data visualization skills, what project skills does your analyst need? If you don’t have anyone in the organization with this list of skills, you need to either hire one or create one.

When you look at job postings right not for analysts, its easy to see that requirements vary greatly across positions.  No two companies have the exact same analytics needs not employee analysts the exact same way. So if you are going out to hire one, make sure you have a clear idea of what you need and not get caught up in looking for an analytics rock star.

It is often easier to actually look inside and find someone who can be trained to take on the role. Having internal business knowledge and knowing the organizational culture are huge plusses. A lot of time because that person doesn’t have the skills on their resume yet, they get excluded. However, I have always favored promoting from within and upskilling then going out and hiring an unknown variable.

So if you think lack of talent is killing you analytics project and are not sure what to do next. Connect with me. Let’s build a job description that tailor fits your needs and see where the best place is to find them. It’s probably someone sitting in a cube next to you.

Analytics Culture – The key to using analytics in a business is like a secret sauce that fuels Data-Driven Decison-Making. It is a unique combination of analytics talent, technology and technique that are brought together to enrich and empower an organization.

A successful analytics culture is not easy to create, but DMAIPH can show you how. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can build a strategic plan to turn your company into analytics driven success story.

Why Analytics Projects Fail – #6: Lack of Funding

Of all the reasons an analytics project can fail, one of the hardest to fix is lack of funding.

There are numerous causes for funding issues with an analytics project, 3 of the most common being unexpected budget cuts, shift in strategy, and lack of understanding.

When you are faced by unexpected budget cuts, which has happened to me several times, the best thing you can do is try and reconfigure your project so that as least pieces of it can still be completed. The idea here is to do what you can until more money is made available.

Having a well thought out plan that is scalable will help you tremendously. One time when I had a million-dollar dashboard project cut because of budget cuts, I peeled back some features and redesigned others to come up with a new plan for 10% of the original cost. That was approved. And over the next year I had pretty much added everything cut back piece by piece. Bottom line, if the company needs a new analytics tool, its up to the analyst to make sure they get it by being flexible and smart.

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A shift in strategy happens a lot in business. So many internal and external forces are at play, a lot of times what once seemed a priority, can quickly become an afterthought. With analytics this can happen a lot when people fall back the we can just get by with what we have for now mentality. In today’s business world where success is driven by data, this can be crazy but it still happens everyday.

The best way to react to strategy shifts are for you to adapt your project to the new strategy and keep it both relevant and necessary. A good analyst can always find a way to offer analytics solutions for any part of the business. Use this adaptability to show your project can evolve with the needs of the business and you will likely still get funding, albeit for a new set of users.

The third reason lack of funding can happen, is actually a lack of understanding. Often finance decisions are made based on assumptions and predictive modeling… highly susceptible to being wrong if some important variables are missed. This has happened to me a number of times. But after conversations and educational moments with the finance team, the true value and ultimate savings of my analytics projects led to the lack of funding being mitigated.

Some things you can try when your project is impacted by a lack of understanding will take us back to the concept of enchantment. Make sure they like you and understand what value you and your analysis adds to the team. Often this can be a hard thing to quantify in a budget. Make sure you are showing how this project benefits others and helps the business as a whole… build trust. Third, make sure the project you are championing will make a difference, show that difference and educate on the need for that difference, in short show them you are doing this for a great cause.

There are countless reasons for lack of funding to become a roadblock for your analytics project, and countless ways to remedy this. If you are faced with one and need some help getting things back on track, connect with me and we can come up with a way to get your project funded again.

Analytics Culture – The key to using analytics in a business is like a secret sauce that fuels Data-Driven Decison-Making. It is a unique combination of analytics talent, technology and technique that are brought together to enrich and empower an organization.

A successful analytics culture is not easy to create, but DMAIPH can show you how. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can build a strategic plan to turn your company into analytics driven success story.