Big Idea 2014: You'll Be Replaced By A Moneyball Executive (Unless You're One)

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers pick one big idea that will shape 2014. See all the ideas here.

The winds of innovation have brought us unthinkable volumes of new data. Regardless of your business function or industry, data will play an increasingly larger role in everything you do in 2014.

As the Chinese proverb says, when winds bring change some will build walls, and others will build windmills.

The people building windmills are the Moneyball Executives, the future all-stars of 2014.

In case you missed Moneyball, the popular book by Michael Lewis and the adapted film starring Brad Pitt, the premise is that a baseball general manager navigated his team to success by leveraging previously untapped data and analytics versus gut instinct. Rather than relying on the traditional, subjective evaluation of player talent, the Oakland A’s front office used an empirical approach to understand trends and individual player performance to assemble the most competitive baseball team possible.

We all know that sports are full of stats. We’re familiar with terms like Batting Average and Earned Run Average. But, every industry has its own set of metrics, ripe for the Moneyball Executive.

New tools and technologies have led to the explosion of new data sets around both consumer behavior and business performance. Data-driven insight is rapidly finding its way into the hands of hungry executives looking to make smarter, more informed decisions on everything from advertising to patient care optimization. These are the Moneyball Executives.

If you’re the editor for a major publication and you’re sending the same daily email to all of your readers based on your instinct of what readers want to see, you’re about to be replaced by a Moneyball Executive. The Moneyball Executive is using a service like Sailthru to capture the click-through activity of each user on previous emails and the types of articles each user has read, cross referencing with articles enjoyed by other readers with similar behavioral patterns and reader profiles. Wide blasts with low click-through rates are being replaced with tailored content for every single user, powered by a keen understanding of “big data”.

If you’re a marketer and you’re not obsessively tracking the shopping behavior of specific customers across the various buying channels (in-store, online, mobile), you’re about to be moved aside by a Moneyball Executive. The Moneyball Executive is leveraging new tools like Nomi and Lytics to build a 360 degree view of every customer, and target the right ad for the right product on the right channel at the right moment for each customer to maximize the likelihood of purchase. The smartest executives are doing everything they can to extract learnings and insight from data that helps them make brilliant marketing decisions.

If you’re an angel investor evaluating thousands of new startups each year and you’re relying on flashy pitches and Power Point decks, you’re about to be outdone by the Moneyball Executive (Moneyball Angel Investor). Prolific entrepreneur and investor Steve Blank recently unveiled a new set of metrics that make up an Investment Readiness Level score – a way for investors to leverage a more analytical, Moneyball-esque approach to early stage investing. Although the skills, qualities and vision of a startup team remain critical to any investment thesis, the Moneyball Angel Investor can now use a more evidence-based system to suss out the best and brightest new ventures.

If you’re a physician and you’re not yet leveraging data to improve the lives of your patients, you’re about to be outshined by your peers using services like Apixio. Apexio is like Google for doctors, only better because it’s specific data and information for each patient. Moneyball Executives (Moneyball Doctors) are tapping into this new world of information for patient care by borrowing strategies and proven technologies from ecommerce and online advertising (and baseball!) to support smarter and better patient care. Apixio makes it possible for physicians to view coded and textual patient data aggregated from multiple sources and search longitudinal patient data using familiar terms. And, it’s helping Moneyball Doctors make more informed decisions and healthcare organizations run more efficiently.

Even if you’re a fantasy football player, there are services like NumberFire to help Moneyball Executives (Moneyball Fantasy Managers) dominate their fantasy leagues. The old strategy of “my gut tells me Eli Manning is going to have a huge game on Sunday against the Bears” is rapidly becoming a second-rate approach when compared to the statistical analyses of real performance trends and forecasts.

I’m lucky to have a front-row seat for this move to the Moneyball Executive through my work with StellaService, a company that provides on-the-ground insight for ecommerce executives on the operational and service performance of their businesses versus their competitors. Before StellaService, ecommerce managers had to plan service initiatives and operational improvements based on conventional wisdom and arbitrary internal targets; now, we’re seeing Moneyball Executives step up at companies like Zappos, Walmart, Kate Spade and many others. These executives are leveraging previously unavailable (or unattainable) data sets to help them make high impact decisions on where, how and why to improve the experience for their customers, in the most effective way possible.

For some industries and job functions, the role of the Moneyball Executive will be obvious. For others it will take some digging. But ultimately, every organization will reap massive benefits from incorporating empirical analysis into its decision making. It will unlock even greater creativity by allowing individuals to attack old problems with light from new angles.

Step up to the plate and become the Moneyball Executive for your organization in 2014. Just like Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A’s, you will quickly find it's a winning strategy.

Photo: David Hsu / shutterstock

Tim Moore

Strategic thinking, social innovation, creative content.

10 年

Data can be predictive ...sometimes. It can reveal undiscovered knowledge. It can't innovate but it can learn. Moneyball execs replacing old school, non-data driven execs may sound dramatic and hardball, but a "guys losing their jobs" trope is not as constructive as a "new jobs being created" one. Why not replace the word 'replace' with "augment or "enhance and cover both bases. Creative instinctuals and numbers guys have always been the sail and keel of any successful organization's vessel. There's no innovation or market motion without both.

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Heidi Hays

Distributed Products Sales Developer @ Mitutoyo America Corporation

10 年

Entrepeneurs denver

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Peter McKay

Web3 storyteller & media innovator

10 年

Worth pointing out: The A's haven't won the World Series in the Moneyball era. Just saying...

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