The 5 Stages of Analytics

Have you ever thought to yourself; Am I doing enough for my business? Is my team making the best decisions? How do I know I am using the right tools for my business? What we’ve done at BluWave is map out various stages of analytics adoption with comparisons amongst each stage. The 5 Stages of Analytics is BluWave’s observations and strategy for business. We have carefully collected data points on who is using analytics, how it is being used, and in what depth companies are using analytics.

Within the past 5-6 years, the word “Analytics” has become a widely used term and even the norm for many industries. Across industries, there are always these 5 stages and companies that fall into each. The 5 stages we have mapped out range from no experience in analytics to fully developed. This framework allows you, as a business owner to reflect on how you are performing analytics and what you can change for the benefit of your company. These 5 stages can also be used as a crutch in understanding if you are utilizing your company’s valuable resources in the most efficient terms (if you are insightful enough, we’re sure you are).

So let’s get down to it. First, we list out the 5 Stage of Analytics with their brief titles and let you wonder what they mean until we dig a little deeper and uncover our findings. Read these carefully, to begin with, and think about what stage your business may be in at this moment. NOTE: We are not going to tell you where you fall, that’s completely up to your judgment and how you perceive your advancement in analytics.

Stage 1: Scared Shitless
Stage 2: Non-Conforming
Stage 3: Value Depression
Stage 4: What’s the Point?
Stage 5: Streamlined Success

Now, many of these may seem like they have a negative connotation, but there are pros and cons in each stage as well as tradeoffs we will discuss.

Stage 1: Scared Shitless

Yeah, this sounds pretty bold. It is. It is very bold in the position of a business owner. Scared Shitless is a statement we have come up with because if you see yourself in this stage, it is exactly what you should be. Stage 1 is a point in which the company is making decisions to drive the business forward solely on gut decision-making. Now, we are not hating on gut-decision-making at all. That is how business has been done for much longer than we have been alive and how great companies have been built. But, in every great company that has been built, there has been a form of structured analytics used (perhaps a later stage).

Our own company was based on a gut-decision and it’s what started us on our analytical journey. But, evolvement into deeper insights has given us the right direction for inclined growth. A feeling, an instinct, or a hunch is great; sometimes right, sometimes wrong, but there is no data to back up those decisions and gauge if they are risk minimizers. Many gut-decisions are not backed by data at all and are mere risk-takers, thus creating the potential for huge upside or down. The unknown is definitely scary and much harder to calculate when there is no information to guide that gut-decision. If you think about it, in every great book when successful entrepreneurs speak of their substantial growth and overall success, they all have utilized one common tool to guide their decision-making backed by data. So you don’t have to listen to us, but definitely take the advice of “Uber”-successful leaders.

Disclaimer: If you can see the future, please stop reading and continue to solely make gut-decisions for your business.

Stage 2: Non-Conforming

The non-conforming stage is what we like to call the wild west of analytics. Here, the analytics barely scrape the tip of the iceberg and has minimal impact on the company’s decision-making structure. The term “non-conforming” means that there is a better way to perform what stage you are in, you just may not have evolved to adopting more advanced analytics, yet. In the wild west of analytics, there are spreadsheet tumbleweeds, confusing data quicksand, among the bland chart staredowns. The sad truth is that more companies than ever are compiling important data points, but not applying them in a decision-making role.

To put it firmly, the non-conforming stage is a land of filled spreadsheets, unappealing graphics, and no cross-comparisons to actually form strategic decisions. Although the right step to better decision-making, the non-conforming stage is a data compilation of confusion and inevitable end of drowning in data. Data collection is a vital role in the analytics process and it is wonderful that companies have taken that first step to start collecting the data and possibly even managing the data. The confusion is wrapped around on what to do with that data. In this stage is the embryonic form taken on the journey to effective analytics.

Stage 3: Value Depression

Bouncing off the wild west of analytics; Have you ever considered using analytics full fledge and paying someone called a “data analyst” to do so? If you have and you are about to pull the trigger on it, wait just a minute and finish reading this. Value Depression is a term that we have used to show what the value is that you are getting for a full-time data analyst and the payoffs of using one. If you don’t know what a data analyst does, here it is: a data analyst is someone that you hire to come in-house to your business and crunch the numbers that your company is putting out. In theory, a data analyst could help you sift through mass amounts of information that your business has already collected (maybe those spreadsheets we were talking about) and stored somehow to then, organize and provide insights to your team.

Now, the great things about a data analyst are that they can work for you full-time and make sure that all of your data is in the proper place for your comprehension. The turn-offs of hiring someone like this can cost you on average $50,000-$75,000 per year (this is a conservative number), they have to use the systems that you already have in place for data collection, management, and visualization. So, if don’t already have efficient systems in place to collect, store, manage/ filter, and visualize your data, then you may be in big trouble if you’ve hired one already. We call it Value Depression for a reason. When you wake up one day and find that there are much easier solutions to performing these key activities for a cheaper price point, you will feel that the value is not worth the cost of this investment. Let’s take a peek at what a better form of this may look like.

Stage 4: What’s the Point?

If you have researched a data analyst, a vast amount of online tools, or even used spreadsheets, you have come to the conclusion that online software might be a viable choice for your business. Online tools are awesome for taking in your data, storing it, and guiding you on what to do with it. It can create vast amounts of KPI (Key Performance Indicator) graphics and give your team the insights that you hunger for. Hold your horses though, you may be in over your head here. If you step back and think about all of your areas of business such as sales, marketing, operations, and accounting just to name a few, then think about how many subsets there are in that area of business.

You have a ton of data coming into just one department; add all those departments up and BOOM, you are in data overload that could cost you many hours of work (oh no, is right). By using an online tool to aggregate your data, someone has to do something with that data. That someone either being you or a person on your team that already has a full-time position doing some other job in your company. Yes, you could hire a full-time data analyst and have them use an online tool for analytics. That solution could cost you their full salary plus the costs of the online tool. For clarity, your company is just taking on another full-time job without another warm body to fill the role. Think about it; do you want another full-time job? Or overload another employee in your company? We think not.

Stage 5: Streamlined Success

Yep, you guessed it, Streamlined Success is us (BluWave). We won’t hold back on the cons of us, nor should we because we certainly didn’t with any other stages. To address some of those pain points: we are a relatively new business solution (although we have a Board of Directors with extensive knowledge and experience)… and yeah, that’s it. Other than that, we’re pretty awesome. Streamlined Success is not a coined term by us, but we do use it to explain how we tackle the “daunting” task of analytics. Spreadsheets? Gone. Hours allocated to sifting through data? Gone. Expensive industry? Gone. What we have done is created a simple solution based on core functionalities of analytics, a fair pricing model tailored to your company, and a customer service for our clients that is unknown to the analytics industry. Anyways, give us a call or set up a demo for us to come to you and show you how to turn your business information into business intelligence.

The Final Stage: Wrapping it Up

Now more than ever, business intelligence is affordable, friendly, and convenient for those companies looking to up their analytics game for better company insights. Analytics isn’t something that should be feared by companies, it’s something that should be strived for. Business is changing and so should the executive team’s decision-making habits. Let’s change the status quo of information gathering, transform it into intelligence, and start embracing the new “norm.”