Obinna Dike, Citi Professional - What is Business Analytics Worth?

Obinna Dike has worked with Citi in London and in New York. He is an expert in software systems and business analytics.

In most situations the difference in value of business analytics is the difference between teams that know what they are worth and those who don’t. General perception is that if a team can’t explain its value then its time is worthless.

Effective business analytics teams strive for continuous value creation. On the way to this goal, they create a variety of intangible assets that help collect, manage, present, and predict data.

For example, a marketing analytics team may create a model that segments customer database to improve the results of direct marketing efforts. By segmenting customers, an organization could improve its conversion rates and customer retention.

Even though information presented by business analytics teams is intangible, it makes sense to account for it as if it were an asset.

In most situations there is a simple solution for determining the value of a business analytics team. When insights drive monetary outcomes, the case could be made for tracing the value chain back to the original assets. Doing so allows not only for linking specific insights to outcomes, but also for identifying influence weights.

The fact that value changes over time is logical and obvious. When it comes to business analytics, this fact does cause an issue. Most teams fail to treat their analytical assets as valuable.

When it comes to money, we usually keep a close eye on the returns of our investments. A rational investor wants to make sure that he is getting the best possible return on his investment.

Analytical assets such as models are no different. They are investments that need to be protected and preserved.

However, the biggest asset of any organization is its people. Having talented engineers like Obinna Dike Citi is an investment worth every penny.

Obinna Dike, Citi Professional - Business Analytics in Complex Environments

Obinna Dike is a gifted software engineer who works for Citi in New York. He is an expert in developing software for complex environments.

When integrating business analytics into complex environments, it is important to include some flexibility.

Even a moderately sophisticated business analytics platform will often result in discovery and will need operational support. It may also need access to different environments that include development, testing, and final production use cases.

Setting such a platform initially requires a significant investment in technology and human resources. Because of the size of this investment, it makes perfect sense to utilize this resource as much, and as effectively, as possible.

Usage is hard to predict beforehand. The reality is such that no matter how hard you try, your predictions will be wrong most of the time. The production environment may be undersized, or the discovery environment may not be designed to accommodate greater than expected usage.

There is a better approach than basing the architecture on physical and logical separation. This approach includes establishing a virtualization layer on top of the physical environment.

This allows organizations to reallocate processing power based on emerging new needs and requirements. If the production operation environment needs to grow and the discovery environment needs to shrink, then the solution can be as easy as adjusting the virtualization settings.

Even when you focus on implementing the best practices, you should understand that more often than not you will get it wrong. Because of this, it makes sense to create the platform in a way that allows for flexible reconfiguration of the environment based on changing needs. To do so, you need to be hiring talented software developers like Citi’s Obinna Dike, who can do the job efficiently and professionally.