Art of Questioning - A critical success factor for success with Analytics initiatives

With the organizations across the world swimming in a whirlpool of data everywhere, it is a no-brainer that organizations cannot survive in the long-run without Analytics.

 Organizations typically tend to treat Analytics as the panacea for all business problems. But Analytics is only a business tool that can lead us closer to solutions. For Analytics to truly succeed, framing the right questions first is even more critical than finding the answers. The questions a business asks should lead the organization down the journey of data discovery, analytical modeling right through to the right actionable information and timely decisions.

 Not all data stored in an organization are pertinent for decision-making. So also from the point of view of sifting the useful data from not-so-useful ones, asking the right questions is paramount and key.

 Let us look at some examples to understand the importance of the art of questioning better.

 Consider, for instance, a textile manufacturer.

Example 1:

Question 1: How can we cut our costs substantially?

Question 2: Can we reduce the cost of cotton raw material procured from supplier XYZ by 20%?

Question 1 is too broad to identify the exact data needed for analysis. On the contrary, Question 2 is more specific leading us to delve into data related to supply chain costs and the firm's relationship with suppliers.

 Example 2:

Question 1: How can we increase our firm's market share in Europe?

Question 2: Which geographic market that we operate in provides the most potential for the firm to increase its market share?

 Again, as you can see, the second question is more specific thereby making it easy to identify the data needed for answering the question - namely, the data on the firm's market share and the competitors' market share in every location of operation.

 One can easily deduce from the above examples that asking the right questions is indeed a critical success factor for success in any Analytics endeavor. Moreover, asking a right question could lead to a virtuous circle of many more deeper and connected questions, thereby paving the way for the right answers and decisions.

 Disclaimer: The views expressed above are my personal views.