TV Industry Must Benefit From Outside-in Data-Driven Decision Making

Posted by Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP in Writers on November 18, 2011  |  0 Comments More from this author  |    |  Follow Gianluigi Cuccureddu SMP on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter |

TV shows will be the most common conversation topic around the world and the subject of more than a billion tweets, according to Deloitte. This is just one network, think of Facebook with more than a billion Likes and the many niche-communities that are about media, TV and so forth.

A new study by the IBM Institute for Business Value and MIT Sloan Management review called "Analytics: The Widening Divide" shows that corporate cultures that embrace analytics to manage their operations have a competitive advantage in the marketplace. In an competitive and disruptive area such as the TV industry, this fact-driven approach is key.

The research is based on a survey of more than 4,500 business leaders from more than 120 countries and a variety of industries. The study shows that 44% of organizations say the primary barriers to enterprise-wide analytics adoption are cultural.

Analytics:The Widening Divide is a follow up to a 2010 study on how companies are embedding analytics into operations and processes . Organizations were divided in three groups, the  Aspirational, Experienced en Transformed that show the level of integration and usage of analytics:

In the past year, the percentage of respondents who note a competitive advantage using analytics grew 23% for Transformed respondents and 66% for Experienced, whereas Aspirational organizations actually fell 5% since last year. The study also showed that most of the responding organizations are using analytics to manage their financial and operational activities, but none of them are using analytics in other business areas to their full potential.

Social media - the outside-in perspective 

And this is exactly where players in this industry can gain their competitive advantage. Using analytics beyond financial and operational activities. Billions of conversations enrich decision-making and evidence based planning. It takes out the second-guessing and it takes into account a viewer-perspective. The real ability to put the viewer at the heart of what an organization does. The next image shows that analytics and data are used the least within the customer-related activities.  This is remarkable to say the least, because the fundamental function of an organization is the creation and retention of a customer.

Why?

Aggregation of internal and external data and insights enables the best of both sides, adapting the inside (org) on the outside. That's what marketing and innovation is all about!

Especially external data and insights are valuable, giving an unmediated view of opinions that goes beyond the scope of internal –mediated- data.

The active approach

A step further would be involving viewers and giving them a sense of ownership of the brand. Once the viewer owns the brand/content, they already bought into it. Co-creation processes brings the best of both worlds, at the one hand, customers influence internal processes, involving them means a better adapted proposition to the needs of the audience. On the other hand, the business part, co-creation brings cost-savings. "Businesses can use information available from social networks to solve the broadest problems in a cost-effective manner", McAfee said. 

Advantages of Transformed organizations

The research also shows the six areas that distinguish Transformed organizations the most:

• Ability to analyze data — 78%
• Ability to capture and aggregate data — 77%
• Culture open to new ideas — 77%
• Analytics as a core part of business strategy and operations — 72%
• Embed predictive analytics into process — 66%
• Insights available to those who need them — 65%

Transformed organizations are 3.4 times more likely to outperform industry peers, and organizations that use analytics for a competitive advantage are 2.2 times more likely to outperform them.

What it takes?

As the research pointed out, corporate culture is the enabler to progress to bottom-up and viewer-centric business output. Then comes the allignment of technologies, processes and people. Opening up the organization enabling the extracted insights to be effectuated within the 'window of opportunity'. Change is key, inevitable and spurred by increasing competitiveness.

Valuable insights are encrypted in the massiveness of raw data, but they're out there, those who are able to process, will outperform. Add the outside-in perspective and business output is sustainable.

Are you deploying evidence-based strategies?