Managing oneself

COMPETING ON ANALYTICS
Organizations are competing on analytics not just because they can; business today is awash in data and data crunchers. At a time when firms in many industries offer similar products and use comparable technologies, business processes are among the last remaining points of differentiation. And analytics competitors wring every last drop of value from those processes. Asone would expect, the transformation requires a significant investment in technology, the accumulation of massive stores of data, and the formulation companywide strategies for managing the data. But at least as important, it requires executives’ vocal, unswerving commitment and willingness to change the way employees think, work, and are treated.
Anatomy of an analytics competitor
These companiesuse predictive modeling to indentify the most profitable customers; plus those with the greatest profit potential and the ones most likely to cancel their accounts. They can optimize their supply chains and can thus determine the impact of an unexpected constraint, simulate alternatives, and route shipments around problems. They establish prices in real time to get the highest yield possible fromeach of their costumer transactions. They create complex model s of how their operational costs relate to their financial performance. Analytics competitors treat all such activities from all provenances as a single, coherent initiative, often massed under one rubric.
Analytics competitors, by contrast, field centralized groups to ensure that critical data and other resources are well managedand that different parts of the organization can share data easily, without the impediment of inconsistent formats, definitions and standards. Analytics competitors make expert use of statistics and modeling to improve a wide variety of functions. Here are some common applications:
Supply chains, simulate and optimize supply chain flows; reduce inventory and stock outs. Costumer selection, loyaltyand service, indentify customers with the greatest profit potential, increase likelihood that they will want the product or service offering , retain their loyalty. Pricing, identify the price that will maximize yield, or profit. Human capital, select the best employees for particular tasks or jobs, at particular compensation levels. Product and service quality, detect quality problems early andminimize them. Financial performance, better understand the drivers of financial performance and the effects of nonfinancial factors. Research and development, improve quality, efficacy, and safety of products and services.



MANAGING ONESELF
We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity. But with opportunity comes responsibility. Companies today aren’t managing their employees’ careers;knowledge workers must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers. To do those things well, you will need to cultivate a deep understanding of yourself. How you learn, how you work with others, what your values are, and where you can make your greatest contribution. Because only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence.
What are my strengths?
Most people thingthey know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what are not good at and even then more people are wrong than right. People had little need to know their strengths. The only way to know your strengths is thought feedback analysis.
Whenever you key decision o take a key action, write down what you expect happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual resultwith your expectations. Practice consistently, this simple method will show you within a fairly short period of time, maybe two or three years, where your strength lie and this is the most important thing to know. The method will show you what are you doing or failing to do that deprives you of the full benefits of your strength. It will show you where you are not particularly competent. And...