Coming soon · Book Profile
Competing on Analytics: The New Science of Winning
A definitive guide showing how companies turn sophisticated data analysis into a distinctive, hard-to-copy capability that drives superior competitive performance.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Competing on Analytics reveals how a small but growing set of organizations have made data analysis the centerpiece of their strategy, outthinking and outexecuting rivals in industries from gaming to logistics to professional sports. Updated to cover big data, data science, machine learning, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing, Davenport and Harris lay out a five-stage maturity model, a four-pillar definition of analytical competitors, and the DELTA framework (Data, Enterprise, Leadership, Targets, Analysts) for building analytical capability. Through rich examples—Netflix, Capital One, Caesars, Marriott, UPS's ORION, Google, and the Oakland A's—the book demonstrates that extracting value from data is less about technology and more about leadership commitment, an enterprise-wide approach, a distinctive strategic focus, and the scarce human talent that makes analytics work. It is both a strategic argument and a practical road map for any executive seeking lasting advantage through fact-based decision making.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A senior executive or manager who wants to build lasting competitive advantage for their organization.
- The problem
- Traditional sources of differentiation (geography, regulation, proprietary technology, product innovation) are eroding while competitors and data proliferate. They feel uncertain whether their gut-based decisions and scattered data efforts are good enough, and anxious about falling behind more analytical rivals.
- The plan
- Assess your current analytical maturity and identify a distinctive capability to support with analytics.
- Secure committed senior leadership and adopt an enterprise-wide approach.
- Build the DELTA elements: quality data, enterprise coordination, leadership, targets, and analytical talent.
- Choose a full-steam-ahead or prove-it path and progress through the five stages.
- Embed analytics into processes and continually renew advantage with new data, metrics, and techniques.
- The payoff
- You out-think and out-execute competitors with fact-based decisions. · You acquire and retain the best customers, optimize pricing, and run ultra-efficient supply chains. · Your organization becomes a high performer with a renewable, hard-to-copy advantage.
See our guide
Related profiles we’ve built
- A Practical Guide To Conjoint Analysis →
- Analytics at Work: Smarter Decisions, Better Results →
- Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think →
- Big Data_ A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) →
- Business Adventures →
- Business Intelligence Guidebook: From Data Integration to Analytics →
- Data Mining for Business Analytics: Concepts, Techniques, and Applications →
- Data Warehouse and Data Mining →
Additional reading
- Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions · Gary Klein
Discusses decision-making in high-pressure situations where there is no time for systematic data gathering, providing a contrast to the analytical approach and showing when intuition is necessary.
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable · Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Argues that statistical analysis is limited because it cannot predict rare, high-impact 'black swan' events, serving as a cautionary note on the limits of analytics.
- Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game · Michael Lewis
A popular case study of how the Oakland A's baseball team used an analytical approach to player selection to compete with richer teams, illustrating the power of competing on analytics.
- Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer · Michael Roberto
Describes how to foster a culture of constructive conflict and debate in decision-making processes, which is essential for an analytical culture where assumptions are tested and merit triumphs over politics.
- The Visual Display of Quantitative Information · Edward Tufte
A foundational work on how to create clear visual representations of data, a key skill for communicating analytical findings effectively.
- Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-By-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart · Ian Ayres
The book discusses how statistical analyses are replacing human intuition and expert judgment in decision-making, a core theme related to the discussion of 'Moneyball' and the demise of the expert.
- Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed · James Scott
Documents how governments' fetish for quantification and data can lead to misguided and harmful policies, providing a deep historical context for the book's warnings about the 'dictatorship of data'.
- The War Managers · Douglas Kinnard
A survey of U.S. generals' views on the Vietnam War, revealing that the 'body count' metric was seen as a worthless and inflated measure of progress, illustrating the dangers of relying on flawed data.
- Thinking, Fast and Slow · Daniel Kahneman
Explains the cognitive biases that lead humans to see illusory causal links, which the author's argue big data correlations can challenge and disprove.
- Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age · Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
Written by one of the co-authors, this book explores the societal implications of perfect digital memory, a theme connected to big data's challenges for privacy and the risk of being a 'prisoner of our past'.