Competitive people often wear their desire to win like a badge
of honour and with that will to win frequently comes a
"whatever it takes" attitude. In the world of sport, the
"whatever it takes" might mean getting up at 4am every
day to row on flat water, 3 gym sessions a day, many long lonely
hours pounding out the miles, or leaving your friends and family
behind to be part of a team that can bring you success.
But "whatever it takes" now also means being measured,
monitored, analysed and optimised – as data analytics has
become a critical component in the pursuit of success. This is the
first in a series of blogs and articles about the use of analytics
in sport, and the lessons that business can learn from how data is
being used to win. These blogs are not akin to some lazy
after-dinner speaker's tenuous link between what goes on inside
a scrum and the world of pie charts and powerpoint.
There are real lessons to be learned from how the urge to win and
the need for even the tiniest competitive edge have pushed sport
headlong into advanced analytics and fact-based decisions, whilst
businesses continue to mumble about legacy databases and poor data
quality, and still make decisions based on what their boss might
think.
So let's start at the beginning. Lesson 101. Basecamp. The
completely obvious, but often overlooked first step: Have a
vision.
Have a reason for doing analytics. Don't just gather data for
the sake of it. Don't just analyse it "to see if I can
find something interesting." Have a clear goal, and use data
to drive you towards that goal. Of course big data allows us to
investigate all sorts of questions, mash data together and generate
insights. But if the analysis isn't founded on a clear and
compelling goal, then its chances of success in the real world are
severely diminished.
For the England Cricket team, it was simple. Become #1 in the
world. Not top quartile. Not improve a bit. It was all about being
the best. Clear, concise, a challenge. When Andrew Strauss and Hugh
Morris, the MD of the ECB recently spoke to us about how they had
transformed England's fortunes, defining their goal as being #1
in the world was the first and most important of all the steps they
took.
What's new, I hear you scream. MBA grads and business gurus
have been talking about the importance of a vision for decades.
True, but how many companies have a data vision? How many companies
can articulate what they want to achieve with data? How many
companies have spent millions on tin and software, only for it to
languish in the corner of the building, unloved, un-needed? The
simple, but often incredibly challenging act of defining what the
data is for, is an immutable cornerstone of success for
analytics.
The England cricket team worked towards that vision with data.
They analysed who they would need to beat, and by how much to climb
up the rankings. They analysed the competition's strengths.
They analysed their own weaknesses, they analysed each player's
style in detail to find out where to bowl and when...but more of
that in the next instalment.
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