The Houston Astros won the World Series last night. The first time the organization has won the World Series since the club was established in 1962. Since its foundation, the organization has an aggregate won-loss record of less than .500, and more recently been perennial losers and bottom dwellers.
Jim Crane, a successful billionaire entrepreneur, bought and took over the team in 2011. In the six years since purchasing the team, he has changed the culture, attitude and environment of the organization in large part based on the more sophisticated use of big data and analytics throughout the organization.
The more advanced and aggressive use of data and analytics, and its benefits, is well documented in player valuation, player match up advantages, statistical based strategy, etc.. For more on this, see
The Analytics Series: Dodgers-Astros is a Win for Sabermetrics
Both teams stress the heavy use of analytics, so it’s only fitting that they are pitted against one another in the World Series.
https://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2017/10/23/16515642/dodgers-astros-world-series-analytics
What is less appreciated and reported is the use of data and analytics and its related advantages throughout the organization.
I had the pleasure of hearing Jim Crane speak five years ago. He lamented about the poor reputation and track record of the Astros. However, he committed to changing the environment and attitude of the organization into a first class winning organization from top to bottom. How was he going to do it? A key component of his vision and strategy was introducing, embedding throughout over time, and ultimately driving the business through the aggressive use of sophisticated data and analytics in all phases of the company. The benefits would not only be a better product on the field, but better results across the board: marketing, sales, operations, process improvements, expense reductions, employee productivity and evaluations, company morale, customer perceived value proposition, enhanced brand value and ultimately significant increases in revenues, profitability and overall enterprise value of the organization.
The results for the Houston Astros are clear and self-explanatory. It is a timely and great case study showing “winning businesses” are the ones which over time adapt, incorporate and drive their businesses through the use of more sophisticated data and analytics in all elements of their business.
If you are not aggressively exploring ways to use data and improve your business through analytics, then beware that someone else in your industry is. The examples are endless: Netflix used customer data, trends, preferences and analytics to build a new business model. Netflix went from start up to multi-billion dollar media and content distribution company, while competitor Blockbuster, having every conceivable advantage at the start, is now out of business a few short years after the emergence of Netflix. Where is the retail industry today versus the astronomical rise of Amazon? Where are the teams that are not using data and analytics compared to the Astros? The Astros are the latest example of a bottom to top change in competitive dynamics and market leader in an industry in less than five short years.
Are you interested in a dialogue on how you can start your path to more aggressively use data to help in your company? Understanding your customers, your markets, unearth new opportunities, reduce expenses, shorten the time involved in various phases of your operations, improve your customer experience, enhance your brand value, drive sales, enhance cross sell up sell opportunities, etc.
The benefits are real and tangible: grow your revenues faster, reduce expenses, become more efficient and automated, make decisions based on information rather than gut feel, and ultimately significantly enhance your market position, growth opportunity and enterprise value for yourself and your investors.
At Tectonic, this is what we do. Please call us to start a dialogue. Tectonic can help your start down the path by:
- helping clean up existing data sources
- doing a simplified Use Case on a set of data to drive better decision making
- providing analytics around existing data sets to help you better understand and appreciate your customer base personas, behaviors and attributes
- looking at multiple data sets, whether internally or externally sourced, to draw conclusions and insights into your business and help identify additional opportunities for growth
- bring together multiple data sets into an easy to read format to advance and automate the quick ability to “read” data from differing data sources into one simple visualization
- plus many, many more.
As in the case of the Astros, we can help you transform your business into a data driven organization and help generate all the benefits and opportunities that come with it. Give us a call and we are happy to help you start today. Because if you are not, someone else you are or will be competing against is.
Chris Wilson
President
Tectonic, LLC
Original url: https://www.gettectonic.com/single-post/2017/11/03/a-world-series-lesson-for-your-business