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Strategic Analytics: Advancing Strategy Execution and Organizational Effectiveness
More than ever, data drives decisions in organizations-and we have more data, and more ways to analyze it, than ever. Yet strategic initiatives continue to fail as often as they did when computers ran on punch cards. Economist and research scientist Alec Levenson says we need a new approach. The problem, Levenson says, is that the business people who devise the strategies and the human resources people who get employees to implement them use completely different analytics. Business analytics can determine if operational priorities aren't being achieved but can't explain why. HR analytics reveal potentially helpful policy and process improvements but can't identify which would have the greatest strategic impact. This book shows how to use an integrated approach to bring these two pieces together. Levenson presents a thorough and realistic treatment of the reasons for and challenges of taking an integrated approach. He provides details on the different parts of both enterprise and human capital analytics that have to be conducted for integration to be successful and includes specific questions to ask, along with examples of applying integrated analytics to address particular organizational challenges. Effective analytics is a team sport. Levenson's approach allows you to get the deepest insights by bringing people together from both the business and HR perspectives to assess what's going on and determine the right solution.
- GenresBusiness
350 pages, Paperback
First published November 2, 2015
22 people are currently reading
47 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 11, 2021
This is a fairly recent business trade book that has a focused agenda. Alec Levenson argues that managers and analysts should carefully think through what they are trying to do and then keep track of what is done and what results are obtained.
So far, so good. But most well crafted books of this sort do this. It is a well worked theme of this genre - 1) think about what you do; 2) keep track of what you do and what the results are; 3) adjust what you do based on your results; and 4) repeat as needed going forward.
What makes this book distinctive?
The particular focus of the book in on two areas.
1) The first is the firm’s “human capital”, a phrase that goes back to Coleman and seems to tie together a variety of human resource management considerations about pay and performance, job design, individual capabilities, business teams and organization design (among others). The logic for a firm’s human capital choices should be made explicit and follow-up measurement (lots of surveys) should conducted.
2) The overall strategic logic of a firm should be identified. This involves identifying what the firm is trying to do in its economic markets, along with a logic of how the firm applies its resources and capabilities to accomplish it strategic goals. This is a conventional view of firm strategy but it is described reasonably well here, albeit at a general level.
3). The next step is to clarify how the human capital logic of the firm links to its overall strategic logic. How does the effective deployment of human capital help the firm accomplish its goals?
4) The final step is to attach measures to this extended logic as best as one can, and then carry out the analysis to show how things have worked out and what needs to change.
Then you are doing Strategic Analytics! As an overall depiction and summary of these logics, the book is fairly effective.
I had a few concerns about this, however, and perhaps I am being too positive.
1). These logics are not really new and have been around for a while. In terms of what the author cites, there are a few 2014 pieces and some 2012 pieces but most are much older. That is OK, I guess but it makes me wonder about what is being added here. In fairness, the book was published in 2015, but the references are hardly cutting edge.
2) The idea of a long integrated logic trail followed up by measurement and readjustments is also not new. Indeed, it is arguably central to the entire genre of strategy books. That is what thoughtful leaders and managers do. The trouble is that such a process is fiendishly difficult to carry out in practice and use to make major changes in a firm. There are a few cases that are discussed generally but to me they did not do justice to the difficulties in pulling this off for a particular organization.
3) For a book on “strategic analytics” there is not much analysis and very little on data collection and analysis issues. Working through even simple multivariate models is hard and in order to manage such a process it seemed like more guidance would have helped. No wonder firms farms this stuff out to their consultants - which raises other sorts of problems. By the way, “analytics” appears to be growing in popularity as a buzzword but I remain unclear that this is anything more than just data analysis and statistics as applied to particular areas. It has always been that way, but I guess putting a new label on an area helps move the product - “old wine in new bottles”.
So far, so good. But most well crafted books of this sort do this. It is a well worked theme of this genre - 1) think about what you do; 2) keep track of what you do and what the results are; 3) adjust what you do based on your results; and 4) repeat as needed going forward.
What makes this book distinctive?
The particular focus of the book in on two areas.
1) The first is the firm’s “human capital”, a phrase that goes back to Coleman and seems to tie together a variety of human resource management considerations about pay and performance, job design, individual capabilities, business teams and organization design (among others). The logic for a firm’s human capital choices should be made explicit and follow-up measurement (lots of surveys) should conducted.
2) The overall strategic logic of a firm should be identified. This involves identifying what the firm is trying to do in its economic markets, along with a logic of how the firm applies its resources and capabilities to accomplish it strategic goals. This is a conventional view of firm strategy but it is described reasonably well here, albeit at a general level.
3). The next step is to clarify how the human capital logic of the firm links to its overall strategic logic. How does the effective deployment of human capital help the firm accomplish its goals?
4) The final step is to attach measures to this extended logic as best as one can, and then carry out the analysis to show how things have worked out and what needs to change.
Then you are doing Strategic Analytics! As an overall depiction and summary of these logics, the book is fairly effective.
I had a few concerns about this, however, and perhaps I am being too positive.
1). These logics are not really new and have been around for a while. In terms of what the author cites, there are a few 2014 pieces and some 2012 pieces but most are much older. That is OK, I guess but it makes me wonder about what is being added here. In fairness, the book was published in 2015, but the references are hardly cutting edge.
2) The idea of a long integrated logic trail followed up by measurement and readjustments is also not new. Indeed, it is arguably central to the entire genre of strategy books. That is what thoughtful leaders and managers do. The trouble is that such a process is fiendishly difficult to carry out in practice and use to make major changes in a firm. There are a few cases that are discussed generally but to me they did not do justice to the difficulties in pulling this off for a particular organization.
3) For a book on “strategic analytics” there is not much analysis and very little on data collection and analysis issues. Working through even simple multivariate models is hard and in order to manage such a process it seemed like more guidance would have helped. No wonder firms farms this stuff out to their consultants - which raises other sorts of problems. By the way, “analytics” appears to be growing in popularity as a buzzword but I remain unclear that this is anything more than just data analysis and statistics as applied to particular areas. It has always been that way, but I guess putting a new label on an area helps move the product - “old wine in new bottles”.
February 28, 2020
Pretty solid piece of work. I was fairly impressed. Would certainly recommend it to others interested in such topics.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews