Episode 22: A Practical Approach to Innovation in Analytics

Guest: Andreas Kugelmeier, IBM

Innovation is much easier to talk about than to do in practice. Challenges include getting buy-in from groups you depend on but have little leverage over, and resisting the urge to go for a BIG vision. In this episode, Andreas Kugelmeier from the IBM Data and AI Labs, talks about the concept of a Business Analytics Innovation Loop as a practical, low-risk and high-reward approach to effecting innovation. The concept has strong parallels with the notion of agile software development, in which progress is made through a sequence of incremental but valuable steps. In Business Analytics there is an added advantage to taking an incremental approach because each steps brings new insights and understanding to light, which can inform and change subsequent steps for the better!

Andreas uses an extensive example from Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) in banking to illustrate his point, and makes an important point about the roles of culture and business process versus software tools in driving innovation and change. This episode is sponsored by QueBIT, trusted experts in analytics.