Insights and Analytics: Larry Danna, Infosys

In a rapidly changing global economy with ever-changing consumer demands, volatile commodity prices and the realization that most top- and bottom-line growth will come from developing and emerging markets, there must be a strategy for faster and better decision making. Many will say that more and better data is the path to successful decision making and competitiveness. But some leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are realizing that the analytics, insights and resultant actions by their teams produce the true value realization.

So, based on CPG company experiences, how might you create a global business intelligence (BI), analytics and insights program and enable its adoption globally? Some recent programs provide best practice direction, such as:

• Deliver and structure a common set of information, in various views, for managers -- detailed to dashboards, local to global, granular to graphic -- but all actionable based on audience and geography.
• Align and design specifically on stated business strategies and KPIs. If not, somebody will eventually be asked to re-do this analysis.
• Standardize KPIs, measures, analytics and reports critical to global consistency for global CPG companies. If you have not done this, do it first.
• Ensure data integrity, which is more about the processes and governance that are established and implemented than the technology and systems employed.
• Realize that as your business strategy changes, so will the BI, analytic and insight requirements. Therefore, get the valuable capabilities in the hands of your executives now, but have a roadmap for growth.  

Many companies have embarked on significant investments in growing volumes of transactional, supply chain, market and consumer data for over a decade now. Others have focused on keeping it simple by leveraging existing data while deploying capabilities and intuitive tools to users as early steps to achieving true ROI.

If you are looking for a path to value realization from your investments in data insights, do not feel inclined to wait for years of ERP and master data programs before you embark on your program. Understand your business strategy clearly for the next three to five years, design analytic and insight capabilities that align with that strategy, and rapidly get those capabilities into the hands of business executives at the brand, geography and function levels. Then, you can grow your roadmap with added capabilities as well as data while value is being realized by the organization.