Ms. Cathy Sue Perry walks into a store and says to the man at the counter, “I need some analytics." The man at the counter, Ian Taylor Consult, replies, “What do you need them for?" Ms. CSP answers, “I think they can help me." Mr. IT Consult replies, “Help you do what?" Ms. CSP says, “Do my job of course."
“What problem are you trying to solve?" asks Mr. IT Consult. Ms. CSP replies, “I’m trying to cut costs. What analytics do I need to get?" She thinks to herself, “Why are you making this difficult?"
The conversation continues in this way for a long time. Sound familiar? The disconnect between Ms. CSP and Mr. IT Consult is one of language, culture and understanding. Ms. CSP may also be trying to determine how much to reveal and whether or not she should work with someone or independently. If she can just get the right analytics, she thinks, maybe she can just do everything herself or at least within her own team.
Ms. CSP could be any business unit manager in your company. Mr. IT Consult at the counter could be someone in your IT or analytics group, a vendor or an external IT Consultant.
The challenge many CSPs have today is not that they don’t recognize the need for analytics, because they do. But they don’t know how analytics can be applied to address given business issues, or which ones to use. Just as there are many business drivers, there are numerous ways of applying analytics to address them.
The first place to start is understanding what analytics actually are. Many carriers don’t understand how analytics differ from basic reporting, for instance. A report can show how much revenue was generated from a campaign. Analytics can reveal how many unprofitable customers have been targeted for a campaign and the impact of that campaign on profitability. A report can show a churn level. Analytics can identify the root cause of churn and predict churners. A report can show network utilization and faults. Analytics can identify root causes of network degradation and the impact on service and repair costs.
In reality, both reporting and analytics are important. Reporting can address what has happened and analytics can reveal what is likely to happen.
The value to CSPs lies in applying a variety of these technologies to address issues of today and the concerns of tomorrow. Simply put, analytics drive sound decision making.
