What Kind Of Analyst Do You Want To Be?

“The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but learning how to make facts live.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

An ANALYST is a person who analyzes and is skilled in analysis. Business Analysts (BA) are required to find, analyze and report business data to support business optimization.

The job functions of an analyst very greatly from business to business and even within each business job functions can vary from analyst to analyst. However at their core, you will find that just about anyone with analyst in the title has several things in common.

Based on the book, the Accidental Analyst, four character traits that most analysts have are:

PASSION for helping people solve real problems
KNOWLEDGE of the business being analyzed
EXPOSURE to thinking analytically and problem solving tools
EXPERIENCE using data to solve problems

In addition most analysts have certain personality types:

reflective
intuitive
deep-thinkers
and able to make quick judgments

These findings show a consistency across analysts no matter if their focus in on reporting, analysis and/or research, if they are working with small structured data sets or volumes of unstructured big data or if they are actively working to optimize the business or just providing information.

Per CHED some of the analytics jobs graduates of the program should be ready for:

Jr. Business Analyst
Operations Assistant
(Web) Site Analyst
Marketing Officer
Jr. Operations Analyst
Financial Analyst
Supply Chain Analyst
Human Resources Associate
Training Associate
Administrative Associate
Accounting Analyst
Quality Assurance Analyst
Facilities Associate
Planning/Budget Analyst
Insurance Analyst
Social Media Analyst
Virtual Assistant
Customer Service Rep
Finance Analyst
Accounts Payable Analyst
Travel Analyst
Expense Analyst
General Accounting Analyst

This list is hardly exhaustive. On a typical day on jobstreet.com you will see hundreds of job titles that includes analyst in the title.

So I guess the next question to ask is, “What kind of analytics and analyst jobs interest you the most? ”

The Fundamental of Business Analytics – Business Analytics is the application of talent, technology and technique on business data for the purpose of extracting insights and discovering opportunities. DMAIPH specializes in empowering organizations, schools, and businesses with a mastery of the fundamentals of business analytics. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to find out how you can strengthen your business analytics fundamentals.

Finding Data For A Case Study In Outsourcing

Taking a business projects I did a few years ago and turning it in to a case study exercise for a group of students.

Project Goal – To determine the viability of outsourcing 3-5 engineering jobs (Project Engineer and Draftsman) from the home office in Rotterdam to the rep office in the Philippines.

Current Situation – There is currently a rep office in Makati that has the space to add at least 3-5 engineering jobs. This study will determine if outsourcing these positions will result in cost savings as well as add value to the overall company operations.

This study will provide answers to three questions:

Is Makati an viable outsourcing solution?

What is the average salary for talent in Makati?

Is anyone else outsourcing along similar lines?

Recommendations – We recommend the following actions to ensure the overall success of an outsourcing transition.

Conduct a thorough cost-benefit analysis comparing current and future salaries and benefits of staff in Rotterdam and Manila.
Post a job listing to see what kind of candidates apply and screen them as future hires.
Market to OFWs as they return from aboard as they are the most likely pool of experienced candidates.
Contract a local Subject Matter Expert who can be hired as the Team Lead who can take the lead in filling out the staff.

Analytics Outsourcing – DMAIPH has successful set up Filipino analytics teams for over a dozen U.S. based businesses. Offering both virtual and office based teams that specialize in problem solving using data, new technology and analytics techniques is our strength. Finding and empowering analytics talent is increasingly challenging, but we have it down to a science. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to learn more about how to set up an analytics-centric team in the Philippines.

What Makes DMAIPH a Successful Outsourcing Partner?

Updated on 10/31/16

Our top focus is keeping your customers happy! If an outsourcing company like DMAIPH is doing things right, its seamless. Your customers will get the exact same level of service if they talk to someone in your corporate office as they would if they talk with our team in the Philippines.

We are not just some vendor providing service… WE ARE YOUR COMPANY.

We have already proven this with an online auction site based in Boston, a pharmaceutical sales consulting business in Houston and a social media networking service from New Jersey among a half dozen others.

Here are some reasons to adopt an outsourcing partnership with DMAIPH:

Lower costs: With no overhead, our partners save as much as 50% by outsourcing!
Time savings in hiring and training staff: Hiring the wrong person can and will cost your company money in the long run. Let us take that risk away from you.
Well trained workforce to handle customer needs and concerns. We train based on your requirements.
No need to invest in and maintain high end infrastructure and technology. We got that covered.
Feedback: You will get information from your outsourced contact center about where your programs have troubles. What’s working, what’s not? By being 6,000 miles away we have a different perspective then those in your own office.

Contact us today for a free consultation. DMAIPH has been providing outsourcing solutions to U.S. based small and medium sized business for over 3 years. Our offices in the Philippines are set up with state of the art technology and staffed with top local talent.

How DMAIPH Uses Analytics > Doctor’s in Houston

I love public data mining projects like this…

Here is what we need:
A list of primary care, internal medicine, general medicine, and geriatric physicians in the Houston area who have written prescriptions for the atypical antipsychotic class of medications.

Specifically:

These physician specialties (primary care, internal medicine, general medicine, and geriatric physicians)
In these cities in the Houston MSA (Houston, Texas City, Pearland, Friendswood, Clear Lake, Missouri City, Sugarland, Katy, Cypress, Spring, The Woodlands, Tomball, Conroe, Cleveland, Kingwood, Porter, Humble, Baytown, Pasadena, Beaumont)
Can we get this mapped into an Excel spreadsheet with the following columns of data:

Separate columns for last name, first name
Specialty
Address
Overall volume of Medicare claims for all of the antipsychotic medications (quetiapine fumarate, Seroquel, Seroquel XR, risperidone, Risperdal, Abilify, olanzapin, and Zyprexa).

If you find research projects like this interesting, then DMAIPH is the place for you! 🙂

At The Mid-Point Of My First Five Year Plan

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/write-five-year-business-plan-1391.html

Came across this how to write a 5 year business plan article. I think its pretty good. Back when I was just starting BPO Elite, I spent a lot of time crafting a pretty thorough strategic plan that helped me really get a grasp on what I hoped to accomplish.

Whenever I consult with a small business owner or a senior manager at a larger company, it’s pretty easy to imagine the ones who wrote business plans… people who think strategically generally like to put thnings on paper and use that document like a blueprint.

Those who go more off gut feel and intuition… its a lot harder for me to help.

Anyway, I guess I am in the middle of a five year plan right now, so here is how I would articulate the DMAI 5 year plan.

Year One was all about laying the foundation. Not much money is made, but the connections you make will be difference makers. Finding fans and advocates are the big goals of year one.

Year Two was all about trial and error. Figure out what makes money and what doesn’t. Finding a mix of products and services that you enjoy and you can pay the bills with is key.

Year Three has been all about expansion. Adding more of what works, finding key people to delegate things to who also believe in your vision, adding roles that allow employees to see career growth. Its all about adding value.

Year Four will be all about duplicating thing to a scale to optimize the business and really start turning a significant profit. This is where you should expect to start getting paid some nice returns on investment.

Year Five will be all about spending more time doing what you love and less managing the things you don’t. By now you should have surrounded yourself with a core team who can run the business without you so you can actually really take some time off to smell the roses.

Choose Not To Get Involved? Then You Really Have No Right To Complain

A good friend and key business partner, Penny Bongato, recently authored the cover story for the AmCham Journal’s September 2014 issue.

I wanted to share some highlights form one of the foremost thought leaders of industry-academe collaboration here in the Philippines.

“Industry. The Academe. When have they ever been in harmony? Some academics say “Leave the teaching to us. We will produce the graduates you need.” Industry however claims that the academe is not producing the quality graduates they need.

Meanwhile, the academe complains that Industry has not been very forthright in articulating what it is exactly that they require of the graduate I believe our expectation is that Academe is supposed to produce employable graduates.

With the challenges businesses face today (i.e., changing technology, fierce competition, and especially globalization) there is not much room or time to train the new employee, similar to the kind of new employee training we had decades ago. If industry continues to harbor this expectation, the often cited phenomenon called the Jobs versus Skills mismatch will keep getting wider.

We have complained about this for decades. In this scenario, what would Industry’s role be? In the four years that I have been with the IT & Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), I have personally witnessed instances of true collaboration between the ITBPM industry, where I belong, and the academe.”

This area of industry-academe collaboration is one of my passions, long ago seeing a greater need to prepare Filipino students for BPO careers. One of the first people I made a point of befriending when I moved to the Philippines to set up my business was Penny. Since we first met over three years ago we have been able to work on several projects together, including me being sent by BPAP to speak in front of students about careers in the BPO industry. Besides speaking to students, I have made a point to recruit students and fresh grads as trainees, OJT and even as employees because I recognize the need to help move this collaboration along.

As Benedict Hernandez, IBPAP’s Chairman of the Executive Committee, CCAP President and the Head of Accenture BPO said, “If you [as a member of the IT BPM industry] choose not get involved, you really have no right to complain.”

I also believe this to be so true! So as both a regular guest lecturer in academe and an owner of a BPO company, I call on my brothers and sister in both arenas to stop complaining and start acting. In the end, the ultimate beneficiary of this is our students… aka our future!

Thanks so much Penny, for sharing these incredible insights and challenging us all to up our game in a time of great national need.

Communicating Strategy From the Bottom

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/06/strategy-isnt-what-you-say-its-what-you-do/

Came across the log post about strategy implementation and I think it’s a good one for consultants working with senior management teams. It goes along the lines of walking the talk.

“Strategic choice-making cascades down the entire organization, from top to bottom. This means that every person in the company has a key role to play in making strategy. Performing that role well means thinking hard about four things:

1) What is the strategic intent of the leaders of the level above mine?
2) What are the key choices that I make in my jurisdiction?
3) With what strategic logic can I align those choices with those above me?
4) How can I communicate the logic of my strategy choices to those who report to me?

If you as a manager can do the first three of these four, then you will own your choices and own your strategy. If you do the fourth, you will set up your subordinates to repeat these four things and thereby own their choices and their strategy, and pass on the task to the next layer of the company. If each successive layer assumes this level of ownership, the organization can make its bosses’ statement a real strategy rather than an empty slogan.”

I can personally say that these points are all very important to infuse into the culture of your company. Both from my Wells Fargo experience where these are deeply ingrained in the corporate culture to the smaller scale of my own company, clearly communicated strategy is the key.
When not only your direct reports, but your two downs are spreading the gospel, you will be successful.

If you need help getting your team to walk the talk, I’m happy to help.

Business Strategy with Analytics – Aligning a business strategy to drive an organization forward requires a robust analytics solution. Businesses who have good analytics tend to be much more profitable and efficient then ones that do not. DMAIPH has helped dozens of companies in both the U.S. and the Philippines with adding more data analysis in their business strategy. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to find out what we can do to help you align your business strategy with analytics.

What Exactly Are Recruitment Metrics?

A general definition of recruitment metrics is something like this, “standards of measurement that HR and Recruitment professionals use to identify, analyze and present important information regarding the hiring process.” Recruitment metrics are extremely important in both assessing the effectiveness of the recruitment process and in looking at the ROI (return on investment).

Traditionally recruitment metrics focus on two areas; cost per hire and time to hire. They are both looking primarily at only the impact to hire someone.

However, those metrics generally do not include a multitude of important data points that decision-makers need to know. For example things like candidate satisfaction and hiring manager satisfaction can help determine wholes in a process.

You can also use recruitment metrics to optimize the hiring process looking at things like distance to work, difficult of commute, and demographic data on what schools and courses provide the best employees.

Another are you can draw psychometric data from for your metrics would be on things like work ethic, career decision-making and employee loyalty to see who is successful in your company so you can find more like them.

The types of metrics you can use in your recruitment process are practically limitless.

Based on a recent survey I saw on LinkedIn, If we use metrics correctly, they achieve the following additional benefits:

Advance the relationship between recruitment and the hiring managers — align the RIGHT objectives
Provide credibility to the recruitment department by displaying that they understand the overall business goals and objectives
Define what is important and expected of each recruiter
Drive consistency in delivery of recruitment services to the organization
Provide a platform to measure recruiter accountability and performance.

Does your recruitment process have actionable metrics that can drive data-driven decision-making?

If you are having trouble with your recruitment metric, connect with me and I’ll help you make sure you are measuring the recruitment metrics that are key to your business.

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.

Outsourcing Tip > The Three T’s: Talent, Technology and Technique

I’ve been part of dozens of BPO team set ups and have directly implemented five this past year or so. In ALL five cases, we have had challenges because we didn’t have the right talent at launch, we didn’t have our technology lined up correctly and we didn’t have techniques in place to ensure a smooth transition of work and an optimal business flow.

Finding good talent here in the Philippines can be a difficult. I’ve blogged about this quite often, the skills gap is a major concern for the long-term success of outsourcing to the Philippines. There are so many good people with the right work ethic and the desire to learn, but so few of them are trained in a way that makes them day one ready to go in a call center environment. Making sure you have correctly identified the skills you need, allocating the appropriate recruiting resources, and building a pipeline to replenish loses and fuel expansion, is so much harder than it sounds.

In regards to technology, there are so many ways to connect clients, customers and operations here in the Philippines. The Cloud allows all sorts of processes to be easily shifted to remote staff and the culture in the Philippines is very tech driven, it’s a great match.

The challenge is sometimes the technology needed is not as easy to introduce as expected and telecommunications and online access very greatly across the country and the workforce. Having a tried and test technological solution and being prepared to deal with the connectivity issues will help assure a much smoother transition of work from abroad.

Most call center operations I have worked with don’t have a clear concept of what they want the day-to-day to look like. The lift and shift approach where you just take a process from overseas and apply it here never works without adjustments. Many times you can find more optimal ways of doing things when you set up because you are able to look at the process end to end. Taking advantage of fully understandings the process being outsourced, documenting it and training on it with a clear plan are all keys to success.

So in conclusion, often what people assume would be the easy parts turn out to be the hardest when it comes to the talent, technology and technique needed to se up a successful outsourcing operation. DMAIPH specializes in helping call centers bring more data to their decision-making and ensure a more optimal approach.

Outsourcing Tip > Size the Opportunity! Not to be confused with Seizing the Opportunity.

When you have an opportunity to get involved with outsourcing, it always sounds like a good way to make some fast money.

The news has been abuzz for a while now with mounds of data and statistics about the high-speed growth in the outsourcing industry, especially here in the Philippines. Just yesterday I saw a projection that BPOs in the Philippines are expecting to see a 15% growth in revenues in 2014.

You couple that with the fact that everyone here knows someone who is making good money as a call center agent or investing in real estate that will be used by call centers, or have a friend in the US who knows someone who wants to save money by outsourcing. It’s one of those everyone is doing it, so why can’t I kinds of things.

This is all good, but there are just as many failures as there are success stories when it comes to small and medium-sized BPOs. Ones where someone had a client, or a building, or an idea but didn’t size it right and misjudged on cost, or talent or market and had to close their doors and lost money.

So when you have an outsourcing opportunity in front of you, whether it be as provider or a client, make sure you size it right. Here are a few things to think about:

Does the client already have an existing business that they want to outsource? If so, fully understand all the requirements of that job as it is currently performed.
Can you find the talent in the Philippines to provide just as good if not a little better service as currently is being provided? A common mistake is thinking that cutting both cost and the level of service will be a win-win.
How scalable is this project? How can both ends be managed in a way that allows for uninterrupted growth? Often things start easy when it’s a pilot, but once you get into production a host of issues can pop up to derail growth and ultimately the partnership.
How stable is the client? Are they a startup that has a great idea and is underfunded? Those are plentiful. Or are they an established business with a strategic plan that includes the fortitude to successfully outsource a key piece of its business? These are hard to find.

That is just a few things that come to mind when I think about sizing the opportunity. Having set up 5 teams in the past year to provide outsourcing services, I have learned a lot about making sure I get the sizing done right. Keeping a client happy is all about under promising and then over delivering when it comes to time, talent and cost.

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