So often people attend conferences, take loads of notes and then forget about them when they get back to the office. BAU takes over. A lot of value from the event gets lost because other priorities take over. Delegates are not alone…this often happens to me too.
In an effort to combat this I had our post-event survey modified to include the following question:
“What was the one big takeaway you got from the event?”
The motivation behind this was to get each delegate to deliberately think about the one thing they got from the event that will make a difference to their data analytics efforts. The survey is sent out a few days after the event so delegates need to reflect on the sessions and discussions.
In no particular order…
The Top 10 Takeaways from CAO Africa 2016:
- Data analytics is not a silver bullet!
- Although there are advanced uses of data and analytics, very few companies in South Africa actually have something like an exec level data or analytics position
- Data analytics is a fast growing sector in business and becoming more and more valuable as businesses start to understand and buy into analytics
- Consumers of information are not all the same, especially pertaining to self-service
- Fail forward in this space. Start small, grow credibility and scale thereafter
- Data analytics connects business to key objectives of revenue generation, cost management and client management
- Take the time to truly understand the insights derived from your data
- Building organisational trust in data analytics doesn’t happen on its own. It needs a plan and careful execution
- Analytics can bring you closer to the business to solve problems together
- The talent shortage in South Africa is going to continually drive fierce competition for top-end talent amongst companies that take data analytics seriously
I think these 10 takeaways are a good reflection of the maturity of the South African analytics environment – there are people leading the charge but a lot of work needs to be done to make it a ‘go-to’ in business.
I’d like to thank all those who attended CAO Africa 2016 either as a delegate, speaker or sponsor. The contributions made by everyone during the presentations and discussion groups help drive the role forward. It’s important that a community is developed where best practice can be shared and ideas created by peers.
By Craig Steward:
Craig Steward is the Managing Director for EMEA responsible for developing Corinium’s C-level forums and roundtables across the region. One of Craig’s major objectives is to provide the data & analytics community with informative and valuable information based on research and interactions with senior leaders across EMEA. Contact Craig on craig.steward@coriniumintelligence.com
