What Separates Analytical Leaders from Laggards? Thomas H. Davenport, Nitin Mittal, and Irfan Saif

Fourteen years ago, one of us (Davenport) wrote an article about how companies were beginning to compete on analytics. In the years that followed, data and analytics seemed to become embedded in business culture. Whether these tools were called analytics, big data, or artificial intelligence, organizations of all sizes and types supposedly embraced these resources as a way to improve decision-making and enhance offerings. How to explain, then, a recent Deloitte survey of U.S. executives that found that only 10% of companies are competing on their analytical insights, and that the most popular tool for analyzing data -- used by 62% of companies responding to the survey -- is the spreadsheet? Our survey results clearly show that analytical competitors represent a minority of businesses today, despite the number of years technologies like big data and analytics have been readily available.