Analytics The Right Way: A Business Leader's Guide to Putting Data to Productive Use

The expert guide to productively and profitably using your organization's data

Providing both underlying theory and practical solutions, Analytics the Right Way is a thorough exploration of how to create tangible business value with data. Written by Tim Wilson, seasoned industry professional with more than 20 years of proven experience, and Dr. Joe Sutherland, renowned professor and consultant who served in The White House during the Obama administration, this book shows readers how to find the answers to common data and analytics frustrations and anxieties, including lack of actionable insights, ineffective recommendations, difficulties scaling, and unclear ROI.

Clear and Accessible

Written in accessible language with helpful illustrations to elucidate key concepts included throughout

How We Got Here

Explains the economic, institutional, and psychological factors that inadvertently reinforce misconceptions of data and analytics and the misguided allocation of resources and efforts

New Mental Models

Introduces the potential outcomes framework, a mental model through which to view decision making and the possible versions of the world that may emerge as a result of the decision you make

How to Use Data

Shows the three fundamentally different ways that data can be used within an organization to drive value: measuring performance, validating hypotheses, and enabling operational processes

Proven Methodologies

Shares ways that digitally enabled, profitable, AI-first enterprises are distinguished by the leader's ability to elegantly weave the three uses of data together

Making Data Fun

Analytics the Right Way is an essential resource for business leaders, entrepreneurs, data and analytics professionals, executives, and all professionals seeking to cut through the noise and start putting data to use in a way that is productive, profitable, and even fun.

Who This Book Is For

You visited this website, which means you’re thinking that something about the way you and your organization use data and analytics is not “right.” Time and again, the executives, managers, and new hires who make up our clients, colleagues, and friends have expressed to us their anxieties related to how they and their teams are using data and analytics:

No Actionable Insights

“We have plenty of data, but the actionable insights we get from it are few and far between.”

New Platforms Don't Help

“Our team consistently invests in the latest data tools and platforms to ensure we’re collecting and storing all the data we might need, but the recommendations we generate from those data never really increase in quality or volume.”

Agencies and Consultants Don't Create Value

“We work with agencies and consultancies that do a lot of reporting on the results they’re delivering for us. Those tend to be lengthy presentations with a ton of charts, but I often feel like I’m just having data thrown at me that may or may not be representing real business value being delivered.”

Can't Trust Your Reports

“I never feel comfortable investing the millions we invest in paid media; it’s unclear if we’re actually getting the returns our agencies report, or if they just tortured the data until it confessed a positive answer.”

Teams Talking Past Each Other

“We have talented analytics and data science teams, but it feels like we’re talking past each other when I interact with them. I really need them to generate insights and recommendations, and they seem frustrated when I tell them that that’s not what they’re providing.”

Data Scientists Overpromise and Underdeliver

“My data engineers over-promise what their machine learning and AI techniques can do for our stakeholders; it tanks our credibility when we promise magic but don’t understand the nuts and bolts well enough to do it right.”

AI Doesn't Produce Any ROI

“My product teams build these exotic proofs-of-concept using the latest and greatest AI tools. But to scale them up is way too expensive, and the production engineers tasked with doing so can’t understand the opaque mathematical techniques being used.”

Vendors Overpromise and Underdeliver

“Our technology platform partners sell us licenses to their latest technology and their latest AI or machine learning, and they share eye-popping stories for how effective they are. But when we dig into the pilots, the platforms don’t offer anything more than what we’re already doing. I wish I could see through these sales pitches earlier.”

Can't Use Data to Make Decisions

“We have a ton of automated dashboards, and I understand most of the data that they include, but I still struggle to figure out how I should be using that data to make decisions. Where do I start?”

If any of these quotes feel familiar, then this book is for you. We’ve heard these frustrations in every data-related function in nearly every industry, ranging from pharmaceuticals to health care, retail, financial services, and consumer packaged goods. And we’ve worked with clients in all of these industries to shift their approaches. Putting your data to use can be productive, profitable, and even fun! That’s why we wrote this book: to guide business leaders who want to use their data effectively.

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About The Authors

Tim Wilson has been an analytics practitioner since 2001, working in roles from business intelligence at high-tech B2B companies, to analytics leadership at marketing agencies, to consulting with Fortune Global 500 companies to improve their analytics investments.

Dr. Joe Sutherland has worked as executive, public servant, and educator for the Dow Jones 30, The White House, and our nation's top universities. His firm, J.L. Sutherland & Associates, has attracted clients such as Box, Cisco, Canva, The Conference Board, and Fulcrum Equity Partners. He founded the Center for AI Learning at Emory University, which focuses on AI literacy and integration for the general public.