Binding: Digital
Format: Download: PDF
Label: Harvard Business Review
Manufacturer: Harvard Business Review
Number Of Pages: 12
Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Publisher: Harvard Business Review
Release Date: 2008-10-25
Studio: Harvard Business Review

We all know the power of the killer app. It's not just a support tool; it's a strategic weapon. Companies questing for killer apps generally focus all their firepower on the one area that promises to create the greatest competitive advantage. But a new breed of organization has upped the stakes: Amazon, Harrah's, Capital One, and the Boston Red Sox have all dominated their fields by deploying industrial-strength analytics across a wide variety of activities. At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technologies, business processes are among the few remaining points of differentiation--and analytics competitors wring every last drop of value from those processes. Employees hired for their expertise with numbers or trained to recognize their importance are armed with the best evidence and the best quantitative tools. As a result, they make the best decisions. In companies that compete on analytics, senior executives make it clear--from the top down--that analytics is central to strategy. Such organizations launch multiple initiatives involving complex data and statistical analysis, and quantitative activity is managed at the enterprise (not departmental) level. In this article, professor Thomas H. Davenport lays out the characteristics and practices of these statistical masters and describes some of the very substantial changes other companies must undergo to compete on quantitative turf. As one would expect, the transformation requires a significant investment in technology, the accumulation of massive stores of data, and the formulation of companywide strategies for managing the data. But, at least as important, it also requires executives' vocal, unswerving commitment and willingness to change the way employees think, work, and are treated.

Customer Rating:
Summary: An excellent overview of the power of analytics
Comment: Davenport's 2006 Harvard Business Review article is a great overview of the power and importance that business analytics can play in creating the competitive platform upon which a business can succeed. As other reviewers have found out, Davenport later expanded this article into a book, Competing on Analytics, co-authored with Jeanne Harris, published in 2007. While using the same name as the article could lead to some confusion, as the other reviews have experienced, one should also realize that a $30 book isn't sold for $6.50. Prospective buyers should know which they really want; both are excellent.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Only 12 pages ?
Comment: I wish I would have seen the other review of this.

I'm sure it is in the description that this is just a 12 page advertisment, but I just didn't expect it so I didn't look that close.

Big waste of $6.50... I could have had a beer instead.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not the same as expected.
Comment: The description of the e-document is not clear that even though it is the same title, that it isn't the same as the hard cover text.

I had checked out the hard cover from my employer's library which I found interesting. I was under the impression that the e-document would be the same but it cleary was not. Didn't notice at first that the e-document was only 12 pages long as I had assumed it was the same document. Now I just paid $6.50 for an advertisement of the hard cover...

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