Data for All: The challenge of scaling Advanced Analytics across an organisation

What is Advanced Analytics?

It is important to understand that Advanced Analytics is a set of techniques, developed relatively recently, typically based on data, from which useful information can be extracted.

This knowledge that can be gathered from the data that exists in the companies allows us to make a systematic analysis of what is happening in each of the processes and draw conclusions that lead to our actions or predict probable outcomes.

The challenges of implementing Advanced Analytics in organisations

The use of this type of technology can bring several benefits to organisations, but there are still difficulties in applying it in some companies, for several reasons. First of all, these techniques are not very intuitive and their application may not be simple. On the other hand, for people who are not familiar with this type of technology, this is not the first solution that comes to them.

In addition to this, this approach typically needs a lot of data so that the processes can be automated, which means that the big beneficiaries of this implementation are large companies. It is also necessary for organisations to have qualified staff with the right technical profile so that the processes and algorithms can be successfully implemented, and there are still many companies that are far from this reality because they do not have data scientists or data engineers to prepare the data so that analyses can be carried out.

For big tech companies like Google and Meta, the business is all about this data compilation and analysis, but most companies, despite being able to access data, it doesn't mean that they are using it correctly or making the most of it. A lot of data is currently collected, but, again, that doesn't mean it's always useful. The big challenge is to implement these methods so that we can discern what is truly important from what is superfluous.

The NOS case

NOS is an example of a company that already has a very systematic approach to these processes, with technical profiles capable of implementing these methodologies. Seeking, however, to democratise knowledge of AA with a view to its universal scaling within the organisation, NOS launched a innovative training programme in Advanced Data Analytics for its employeesdeveloped in partnership with Nova SBE Executive Education and LTPlabs, with the aim of making known the potential of AA to the organisation in general.

FAAST (Forward the Advanced Analytics Smart Transformation) is a programme that materialises the NOS focus on the dissemination of the applicability of AA throughout the organisation, in recognition of its growing importance in better decision-making. The various modules seek to ensure mass-proximity of the organisation with the basic concepts of AA, with knowledge of the life cycle of AA projects and good project management practices and, lastly, with a framework governing the discovery of opportunities for application of AA throughout NOS. FAAST marks a clear bet by NOS on the scalability of AA in the organisation, representing a formative process that is much more than the technology and its potential. Its fundamental focus is on people and on how they represent a disruptive axis in the transformation enrolled by Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at the service of organisations.

This is a new world of potential, because data is no longer used just to describe the past and present of organisations. Now, it can serve us to promote decisions and predict the future! This is the great benefit of cognitive technologies.