Dr. Athina Kanioura, Chief Analytics Officer and Global Lead for Applied Intelligence, Accenture. She is responsible for product sales and consumer analytics globally. She’s developed Accenture’s Applied Intelligence and analytics staff to almost 35,000 employees and focuses on helping customers drive business transformation by making use of analytics, data, and AI. On a recent trip to India, she spoke on how you can produce a successful data strategy and the problems faced by companies.
What are the major obstacles a company faces in translating data into actionable insights?
One is that businesses choose to invest the infrastructure to ensure every little thing is put in a single spot, everything is orchestrated the proper way, and after that tackle a company problem. And then there’s the different school of consideration that I do not have everything perfect in the wedge. I have to initially recognize the business problems, I have to resolve for that, even in case it is sub-optimal, to begin with, but at least I may make decisions more quickly. I am a proponent of the 2nd design. We constantly attempt to inform the clients that in case you spend way too much effort in building the perfect technology, you are going to lose the touch with the customers because customers are starting to be more impatient.
They can’t hold out for you to resolve the issue in 18 months when you’ve completed the infrastructure, you expect to have them resolve the issue. Today, they expect to have it the following day. Then there’s a huge amount of challenges in phrases of the mindset. At the end of the day, the customers any analytics or data are the men and women in the business who are working for it. And asking someone that has been working in the past 15-20 years doing a specific work type to follow an alternative way of dealing is a challenge.
And unless it’s top to down endorsement that I wish to turn into data-driven, I wish to be AI-powered, it is very difficult for the center level of the staff members to inherently replace the way they’re working. And therefore we’ve seen businesses that have really sort of built that mind-shift, actually succeed. Furthermore, suppliers need to execute the ground. So what’s the execution process you’ve to put in position? What exactly are the change management processes, what’s the training of the employees, what’s the upskilling of the employees, what are the learning boards you’ve to stick in place to make sure that the employees have all of the info they have to have the ability to make use of those abilities.
What role do new technologies play in Data Analytics?
It’s crucial, there’s no way that any of us might do what we do today without the new technologies. Technology is crucial in 2 ways.
- It allows our data researchers to do things much quicker and automate the procedures that they’ve created.
- Technology enables them to focus on the things which are crucial. When you automate many procedures, data scientists are able to concentrate on the interpretation process.
And so, he or she becomes much more of a company validator and assist us with having a deep awareness of the technologies, not one particular technology, all of the technologies, because not one of our consumers are using one technology. And so technology is important. We make use of it to the advantageous asset of the clients of ours, though it’s just as sophisticated for our consumers to navigate. And consequently, they want our help to simply exactly how they are able to invest data.
How to build a successful Data Strategy for any Company?
Companies need to have a clear awareness of what are the strategic priorities of the business, therefore they have to begin about considering where do they wish to be as a company in the next 3 years? That will likely then figure out not simply the business strategy, but also their analytics and data strategy. Next, they have to determine what are the roadblocks they have to get into account to have the ability to explain a much better data strategy. It may be technology roadblocks, it can be company roadblocks, it can be process or assets roadblocks.
‘Accenture is investing in Data Analytics’ What kind of investments are you making in India?
We typically invest 5% of all the revenues in research. India has been our Jewel, both from a worldwide perspective and a local viewpoint. Our India industry is displayed as a good example for the rest of the Asia Pacific planet, therefore we’re aggressively hiring for that area.
If I were looking at the talent technique we’ve in India, we have a relationship that is strong with the best colleges. We sponsor master’s program and Ph.D. plans in the nation. We also encourage our employees to work in academia or even take a sabbatical. We’ve had a recent example of a senior manager that took some time off and wrote a book around machine learning. This’s an element of our culture.
For me, the proudest moment was a few years back when India was thinking about the maternity policy. We have been the first to introduce the 6 months maternity leave. We put on intelligence, did the evaluation on the effect of the very short maternity period on the female employees, assessed the returning ratio and used analytics to have the ability to consider the root factors behind why females did not return back again to the workforce. This for me this is the power of analytics. We could make use of Analytics in a nation which inherently for us is extremely strategic.
Globally, we’ve created the commitment as a business in which 50% of our employees must be female employees. And so, I wish to incentivize the women to remain and progress in the business. And for me, it is a part of our duty as a data and analytics company to also inform and create good policymaking.