The 10 Analytics Essentials of Entrepreneurship

A good friend of mine, Boom San Agustin, recently blogged about the essentials of entrepreneurship. Boom listed the 10 things most essential to be successful in setting up and running your own business.

This inspired me to put an analytics spin on each of the 10 points, showing how you can use data to augment each point.

Have passion for what you do. One way to measure how much of your time you are devoting to your passion is to set a schedule and track how much time is devoted to everything you do each day. If you are happy with the % spent on passion projects then you are doing the right thing. But if too much of your time is spent on things you don’t like doing, then you need to make some changes.
Pursue excellence first, money second. Here you need to do a lot of research and ask a lot of questions. You need a clear idea of what excellence in your chosen business looks like. How can you measure excellence with your products, your service, your team’s performance and engagement? Putting some key metics in place will allow you to make more informed decisions.
Be open and honest with others and yourself. Get feedback. See what % of your client, customer, partner, team member, interactions are honest and endure honesty in others. Come up with a way to measure the trustworthiness of what you do.
Have a “can-do” attitude. Keep a project list of all the things you need to accomplish. Update it every day. Be able to show yourself and others your progress towards getting things done. This will ensure that people see the work behind the words.
Be the leader your team needs. Devote significant amounts of your time to your team. Keep them informed by blogging. Build tools for communication like newsletters. Be visible in person and in social media. Track the frequency of your engagements and correlate them to employee satisfaction surveys.
Learn to communicate well. Get in front of an audience whenever possible. Engage the audience. Ask for feedback. Identify challenges and opportunities and then follow up. If your team doesn’t know what is going on in your head, then it is a problem. Gathering data on your communication strengths and weaknesses is key.
Be a teacher and a learner. Facilitate as much on-site training as possible. Get involved in it. Train people yourself on areas you are good at. And then sit and listen to other experts in areas you are not. Track the time put into training and come up with a cost justification. Its easy to cut training when times are tough because its hard to assign a value to it. Make this a priority now so you always know the valued of training in your business.
Have your ear to the ground. Stay engaged in person and on social media. Keep updated on trends affecting your business and your employees. Use a social media tool like Hootsuite to manage your social media messaging to get feedback all in one place. Lots of data points can be created and tracked to measure how close you are to the pulse of your business.
Be dynamic and open to change. Set a check-in schedule. Encourage one on ones and team meetings that are not just one sided but empower sharing. If you are open minded and listen, you will be able to make changes to your business that keep things on the cutting edge. Use a timeline to show where you have been, where you are and project out where you are going.
Know when to quit. We all fail. Businesses will all fail at some point. Winners know when its time to fail and walk away to do something else. Losers stay the course until they go down with the ship. Figure out what is the most important metric in your business. Sales, profit, engagement, risk potential… whatever it is. Figure out what is the lowest acceptable number, once you get close to it, be prepare and exit plan. If you pass it, face facts and pull the plug. Always have that data point at your fingertips.

If you are able to build in analytics like these, you will be able to manage your business well. You will set a tone among the leadership that uses data, not just the gut, to make decisions. One of your first hires should be a data guy who can build a business dashboard and deliver impactful reports. Someone who can help you identify risks and rewards and keep your focus on the metrics that matter most.

Analytics Leadership – DMAIPH specializes in arming the Data-Driven Leader with the tools and techniques they need to build and empower an analytics centric organization. Analytics leadership requires a mastery of not just analytics skill, but also of nurturing an analytics culture. We have guided thousands of Filipino professionals to become better analytics leaders. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to discuss a uniquely tailored strategy to ensure you are the top of your game when it comes to Analytics Leadership.

Outsourcing Tips for Small Businesses

Small Business Analytics is not a very well established discipline.

You generally see analytics across all kinds of businesses in just about every industry, but for the most part these businesses are large in size.

The concept of analytics is something that most small businesses have not embraced because of two perceptions that hinder the adoption of best practices; a good analytics solution is too time consuming and too expensive.

These perceptions are often false. Just about any small business can benefit from a number of analytics techniques and technologies that do not require significant amounts of time or financial resources.

When talking with a small business owner about their business, I like to ask a series of questions to gain and understanding of the data they have to work within their business.

Generally, I find that they rarely, if ever they even think about the data they have.

So that is often where we start. Trying to map out their data environment.

Once we have an idea how data is (or could be) collected and stored, then we can turn to talking about analysis.

And after I have a good idea of what (if anything) they are doing with their data we can move to reporting. How is data and analysis presented within the business.

Often I find that pieces of the data collection, storage, analysis and reporting process are happening in subtle ways that don’t, on the surface, look like an analytics solution.

Over the next several blog posts in this series, I will offer up some tips to small business leaders, managers to point out where more analytics can be used with minimal time or cost impact to themselves.

To date I have helped over a dozen small businesses come up with an analytics solution tailored to their unique needs. We have been able to address key challenges that only a deeper understanding of the data in their business can uncover.

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.

The Secret to Being a Great Analyst

The secret behind just about anything successful is having a plan.

What is your analytics plan?

How will you empower analysts to add value?

What data techniques can you learn to have a greater impact?

How can you get your hands on new technologies to enhance the way you work with data?

You need a plan.

An analytics action plan.

An analytics strategy plan.

An analytic roadmap.

Whatever you call it, you need a plan that combines the right analytics talent, the right analytics techniques and the right analytics technology.

You need to build a map of how your data flows through your business.

You need to identify people in your organization that are curious and comfortable using data to make decisions.

If you are ready to build your analytics plan and need to ensure it will achieve you goals, I will be facilitating a training class on February 21 in Ortigas. Send us an e-mail to analytics@dmaiph.com to register or to get more information.

I will help you come up with an analytics plan to help you start taking advantage of the business data you have in order to increase efficiency and grow profits.

Analytics Training – DMAIPH offers a wide range of analytics centric training solutions for professionals and students via public, in-house, on-site, and academic settings. We tailor each training event to meet the unique needs of the audience. If you need empowerment and skills enhancement to optimize the use of analytics in your organization, we are here to help. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly to set up a free consultation on which of our DMAIPH analytics training solutions is best for you.

Three More Reasons I Love the Philippines

I recently blogged about three reasons I love the Philippines; the geographic location of the Philippines, the Heart of the Filipino and the opportunity to fulfil my destiny of empowering Filipinos with analytics.

The blog post as generated more buzz and had more views then just about anything I have published in the past year.

It is an honor and a blessing to be able to do what I do, to speak, write, blog, and talk about analytics to Filipino students, professionals, and businesses.

Recently as the amount of rhetoric between my country of birth and my country of choice has risen, I have come to appreciate three more things I love about the Philippines.

First, I love the healthy political discourse between those who see the future of the Philippines as a more independent country with those whose lives have been positively impacted by foreigners like me.

Everyone has a right to their opinion and I spend a lot of time reading them and considering them. As an American who has cast his lot, so to speak with the Filipino people, I will always respect even those who I disagree with.

Second, I love the fact that President Duterte’s rhetoric is forcing the American government to reflect on its relationship to the Philippines.

This too is healthy in the long run. The relationship between the two nations is very complicated when you consider the various twists and turns of our shared history. We need to have a continual dialogue about how to evolve together for the better good.

Third, my passion for empowering Filipinos to use data in their decision-making only gets stronger.

In a time of change, it is more important than ever to balance emotion with fact. A balance of meeting the emotional needs of 101 million people with the data that can competently predict the impact of various decisions is super important.

The upward momentum enjoyed by analytics and data science in the Philippines assures me once again, that I am in the right place at the right time.

There are many reason to love the Philippines… I could and someday soon will go and list more.

In the end though, to me, it is all about the simple fact that destiny has placed me here to do something important.

And that simple fact is truly a divine gift that makes me love the Philippines.

My Analytics Story – My passion is solving problems by bringing together the best talent, cutting edge technology and tried and true methodologies. DMAIPH is all about empowering people towards better Decision-Making through the use Analytics and business Intelligence. This is what I do best. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly for a free consultation about getting more analytics into your career and your business.

Why I’m Sticking with the Philippines

The past few months have seen a lot of negativity from President Duterte and his leadership team in their comments about the state of U.S.-Philippines relations. Add to this the uncertainty around President Trump and his vision that suppresses globalization and threatens outsourcing.

The comments are sometimes a challenge for me to listen to as my connection to the Filipino people runs deep.

I grew up in Vallejo, California which has one of the largest and most vibrant Filipino communities outside of the Philippines.

The majority of my friends from elementary through high school are either Filipino immigrants or the children of Filipino immigrants.

My first crush was a Filipina. My junior prom data was a Filipina. I ended up marrying a Filipina. My brother married a Filipina. My son spent a year going to high school in the Philippines.

I not only love eating Caldereta and Adobo, but I can cook them really well.

I’m a huge fan of Jennylyn Mercardo and English Only Please is one of my all time favorite movies.

I have no problem riding in a Jeepney.

When I was working as an Analyst at Wells Fargo, I was deeply invested in making our remittance product the best in the business. I also volunteered to engage the Filipino community of almost 4 million at numerous events and promotions.

When I finally had the chance to move to the Philippines to set up my analytics business, I did so to fulfil my destiny… to empower Filipinos to use more analytics in their business decision-making.

To date I have hired over 200 Filipinos, have spoken at dozens of schools in the Philippines and have provided analytics training to thousands of Filipinos.

Like just about any American who spends quality time in the Philippines, I love the Philippines.

No matter what happens between my government by birth and my government by choice, I will always feel that deep down inside my place is in the Philippines.

Because the heart of the Filipino is truly special in this world.

And that is why I am sticking with the Philippines.

Data Analytics Training on Feb 21

Did you know that most successful businesses have solid data analytics in place across their entire organization?

Organizations that invest in data analytics generally make much better business decisions then one’s that don’t.

In fact, IBM found a few years back that companies who use data analytics are up to 10x more efficient and 33% more profitable the ones who don’t.

By bringing data together data from across the business, companies can get real-time insights into finance, sales, marketing, product development and much more.

Data analytics enables each team within the business to collaborate, achieve better results and outsell the competition.

Join us on February 21, 2017 in Ortigas, and learn how to turn your business data into insightful and actionable analysis.

The Stuff of Legends

The 2016 San Francisco Giants beat the odds.

After having a horrible second half of the season, even the most die-hard Giants fans were on the edge of giving up.

But they persisted.

They didn’t give up.

The keep fighting until the last day of the season.

Then they made the playoffs.

And they beat the odds again and beat the New York Mets.

They got their shot and they made it.

Now they have even bigger odds facing them to beat the Chicago Cubs.

You can look at all the data you want, but sometimes it just comes down to things hard to measure.

Like heart.

Like persistence.

Like belief.

You need these things to make it.

I love data and use it all the time, but sometimes in life you just can’t explain how some can beat the odds.

Like the 2016 Giants.

This is the stuff of legends.

The Cost of Ambition

Saw this on LinkedIn.

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It’s hard to put a price tag on it, but let’s put some data behind the Cost of Ambition anyway.

I worked a corporate 9 to 5 job for 15 years and I rarely just worked 40 hours a week. And for a significant % of the time I worked on things that didn’t always interest of challenge me.

Now I work 24/7 but it is very unstructured. And I am almost always working on things that are both interesting and challenging.

I no longer dread waking up. In fact I am generally full of energy right out of bed.

Before I couldn’t always take time off when I wanted to because it was someone else’s choice. Now It’s always my choice when to take time off.

More time to do what I want to do… cost benefit is a plus.

I have a combined 20,000+ connections on Linked, Facebook and Twitter. I have many, many friends. But I only spend significant time with a handful of them.

Big network, cost is a plus again.

I do indeed spend more time explaining myself then I used to. Being an analyst for Wells Fargo kind of speaks for itself. Being a entrepreneur who set up a business in the Philippines to empower people to use more data and analytics take a few more words to explain.

Often many more words. That’s a cost benefit as well. I can make more money because I can do more things.

As I evolve as a businessman and a professional analytics champion, I do spend more time alone.

The air is definitely thinner on top where the higher you go, the fewer you really relate too.

That might be perceived as a negative cost to many, but to me I’ll add it as plus too.

It takes a certain kind of person to do what I have done. I’ve been told I have moxie. That I am bold. I do not fear much and I enjoy jumping into the deep end of the pool.

As my acquaintances grow, so does my competition.

It is important to look for collaborators while at the same time get used to being burned by failed partnership.

There is definitely a negative cost financially, but I learned a lot of good lessons. So this cost is wash.

I do sometimes feel alone. But more often than not I’m too busy to notice.

Ambition does indeed have its costs. More of somethings, less of others.

But when I add up what my choices have cost me, they pale in comparison to what my choices have brought me.

Success, satisfaction and knowing that if I die tomorrow, I truly did make the world a better place.

And that is priceless.

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.

Lack of Focus – People are not on the same page
Lack of Vision – People don’t know where this is going
Lack of Management Support – People don’t know who to follow
Lack of a Champion – People have no one to cheer lead
Lack of Organizational Support – People don’t really care
Lack of Funding – People don’t want to waste money on this
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.

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

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: #4 – Lack of a Champion

A lot of time analytics project fail because there is no designated champion for the project.

I see a lot of money wasted on analytics technology because there is no one in the business who masters the technology. Who knows how to use it better than anyone else and knows what more can be done if other people become experts.

Good analysts are curious above all else. In the right place, they can do amazing things to drive innovation, increase profit, optimize processes and build market share. When you don’t have a a champion the outcome of any analytics project will be in doubt.

The most curious person in the organization should be the analytics champion because they love to go out and find the data to answer any business question that comes up.

If your analytics project doesn’t have a champion, then you most likely see a general lack of focus, an unclear vision and an uninterested leadership. Can you be that champion? If you think you can then do the Moneyball and Enchantment things from my last blog. They will help you gain your champion’s belt.

When you read Enchantment, you will start to understand that an analytics champion does as much influencing with their analysis as they do reporting.

Another way to be seen as the champion, is to make friends with people. Dropping off a box of donuts with the IT developers or sending thank you notes to project team members who went above and beyond is just as important as mastering the coding language used by your new analytics tools.

I keep a lot of analytics books on my desk. I make it obvious that I am always thinking about data and how to use it to improve what we do. I share a lot of content about analytics on social media. People know me as the data guy. You want to be like that if you want to be crowned Analytics Champion.

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.

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