Obinna Dike, Citi Professional - The Challenges of Using Business Analytics

Obinna Dike works as a software engineer for Citi in the Greater New York area. He has over seven years of experience with creating complex software systems, and working with big data and business analytics.

Business analysts work in a challenging environment. On the one hand, they are efficient because they have well-defined, purposeful processes and models.

On the other hand, there is no innovation without experimentation and trying to do different things in different ways.

Innovation and efficiency directly contradict each other. This presents organizations with a challenge: focusing on just one of these, and ignoring the other, inevitably leads to a low value. 

One way to approach this challenge is to make efficiency the primary goal. When such a goal is created, analysts can develop very well-defined and results-oriented processes. However, this comes at a cost: such processes are usually very resistant to change. Every time things change, they usually fail to keep up. Adapting the processes to change requires a significant investment of time and money. 

Business intelligence analytics is a prime example of this challenge. To manage risk and have defined prerequisites, most organizations exhaustively scope metric requirements before developing reports. The advantage of this approach is that is allows for repeatability, reduces uncertainty, and formalizes processes and roles. 

The problem is that such an approach is very inflexible. A business may not know what it needs to focus on until it analyzes a vast array of data. It is also challenging, and at times impossible, to build models and reports based on unknown or nonstandard requirements. 

In most situations the answer is about achieving a balance between flexibility and certainty.  Software engineers like Obinna Dike Citi can build any model as long as the client knows what he is looking for.

Obinna Dike, Citi Professional - How to Get Started with Analytics in Your Business

Obinna Dike has been working with Citi in the United Kingdom and the United States for over five years. He has tremendous experience when it comes to software systems, big data, and business analytics.

The word analytics means discovery, collection, and interpretation of patterns in data.

What data should your business collect? Are you collecting enough data already?

Success of an organization in the marketplace directly depends on the possession of key assets and skills. Therefore, an analysis of strong players in the market will reveal the causes behind a successful track record.
This is how you get started with analytics in business. You don’t start collecting everything. You figure out the parameters that matter, start with them, and expand from there.

These parameters are also known as value elements. Identifying, collecting, and tracking value elements in your marketplace will give you a very deep understanding of the marketplace.

For example, search engines have the following value elements: speed of obtaining results, speed of loading, accuracy of search results, ease of use, visual design, and advanced features.

You can find analytics behind every successful business strategy. You can’t have a strategy if you don’t know what is currently happening in the marketplace, and to know what is happening means to collect a lot of numbers and analyze them.

Everything in the market has competition. Even if the marketplace is empty, you do have competition. Your competition is the absence of a solution, not doing anything about a problem, or not knowing that a solution exists. Unless everybody buys from you, they do have choice. You have to understand what that choice is and collect data to make decisions about your business.

The Role of Analytics and Data in Competitive Intelligence

Many businesses approach the subject of competitive intelligence in the wrong way.

Competitive intelligence is not something you do once. It’s not something you do from time to time because some of your employees have nothing better to do.

Competitive intelligence should be a systematic, ongoing process. It is a gathering and analysis of information about competition, customers, and your marketplace.

The purpose of gathering data should not be data for the sake of data.  The goal of competitive intelligence is to create actionable insights.

What do you measure? First, you measure all numbers such as customer value, conversion rate, and different metrics that show how effective a call center is, and so on.

When it comes to analytics and competitive intelligence, many businesses do not pay enough attention to the opportunity to become a customer of their competitors.

Yes, it is painful to reach into your pocket and give some of your hard-earned money to your competitors. However, this opportunity comes with an unbelievable return on investment. You will be able to see all of the customer promotions and all of the internal marketing that your competitors are doing. You will be able to rip apart their products and dissect their services to get an idea on how to make your products and services better.

You will also be able to see what your competitors are doing after the sale to make the sale stick and to have their existing customers come back and buy again. Hiring professionals like Obinna Dike Citi and building analytics platforms would allow you to integrate all this information into usable reports that create actionable insights to further grow your business.

Obinna Dike of Citi - First Steps of Starting a Hedge Fund

Obinna Dike Citi is a financial software engineer who has worked with Citi for several years. Like many financially-minded individuals, Citi’s Obinna Dike has an interest in hedge funds. For those with a similar interest, the prospect of starting a hedge fund is often appealing, and it holds the promise of profit.

The first steps generally involved with starting a hedge fund include essentials like…

Creating Your Team – At minimum, you’ll need four people on your team: a chief financial officer, a junior trader and two junior analysts. Look for team members with a keen mind, whom you trust to be loyal and to find opportunities in otherwise-untapped areas. For new hedge fund teams, founders often seek junior-level professionals.

Naming Your Fund – It might not seem important initially, but naming your fund is among the first steps that you should take. You don’t want to convey a ridiculous or overly-aggressive image with your name, and you don’t want to use your own name. This means taking time to choose a respectable name with some sort of meaning to you.

Finding a Firm – Every hedge fund manager needs a high-quality firm to incorporate their fund. Select a respected law firm with experience in dealing with hedge funds. It is wise to shop around to find proper, affordable legal representation.

If you don’t have the financial experience of someone like Citi’s Obinna Dike, consider seeking it from an external source. Mentorships and financial advisors are everywhere, if you put in the effort to find them.