Analytics Strategy: Frameworks and Choice
This week, I pitched three books that help me formulate analytics strategy.
They are:
I’ve written summaries of the key points on previous days. Now, I’m going to bring them all together.
Strategy is:
- A design, that;
- Enumerates choices,which;
- If architected with complementary and reinforcing choices results in;
- Sustainable competitive advantage against predators who;
- Want to destroy your firm.
Concretely:
Design is created by agents. We know from Beinhocker that agents “use inductive rules of thumb to make decisions; have incomplete information, are subject to errors and biases; learn and adapt over time.” (PP. 97). It’s conceivable, and even likely, that if you let everybody have at a Porter Activity System Map, you’ll end up with disconnected graph.
Complexity economists are happy with that. That isn’t their problem.
It’s yours.
And that’s where really good analytics can come in.
Analytics can:
- Reduce the reliance on rules of thumb (heuristics),
- Fill in some gaps in information (but not all),
- Reduce error and biases,
- And, improve the ability of a firm to adapt over time.
Finally:
The great thing about the Business Model Canvas is that it constrains choice and reduces the likelihood of agents introducing circular preferences into a strategy. And circular preferences appear to be the default state when groups of people get together to decide on a choice.
It’s possible to develop the Porter Activity System Map and put it right into the “Key Activities” area of the Business Model Canvas, yielding the best of both systems.
So give it a try. You have a Business Model Canvas. You know how to draw a Key Activities Diagram. Engage in some design and then tell me about it.
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I’m Christopher Berry.
I tweet about analytics @cjpberry
I write at christopherberry.ca