In the immortal words of Vince Lombardi, “If it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, then why do they keep score?”
This quote applies equally well to sports and business. For starters, success for both hinges on fielding a talented team, achieving a sustainable winning record, and growing a loyal fan base. Complexity, pressure, dynamic market conditions and fierce competition are constants for both, and ultimate victory is often determined by the smallest of margins.
While the specifics of ‘keeping score’ in sports and business can vary, collecting and analyzing mountains of data – across all aspects of sports/business operations – is how we measure performance, adapt processes, exploit opportunities, counter competitive threats, achieve efficiencies and chart a winning strategy.
Often-cited barriers to adopting analytics include the cost and complexity of software, hardware and systems integration; the lack of skilled resources, the extreme volume, variety and velocity of data growth, and — understanding that analytics is a continuous cycle of model discovery, deployment, and optimization — identifying an optimal use case for initiating and growing analytics capabilities that yield both immediate and long-term value.
To learn more about how sports analytics use cases can help drive your businesses’ analytics initiates, be sure to watch and listen to the ASUG & NTT DATA keynote on Sports Analytics (Sept. 22nd) and meet with NTT DATA at the ASUG/SAP Analytics & BusinessObjects Conference, September 22-24, in Fort Worth, Texas.
Read article by Jeremy Steirwalt: Sports Analytics Use Cases Applied to Business