Let’s talk about the four principles of analytics. We all know these, for the most part. The difference is when you follow through on all four of them every time. As properties are reopening and with less team members in marketing at some casinos – it’s critical that we get back to this systematic approach. Making data relevant, quick and easy to read will be more important now than ever before. Even more important will be the ability to take that data and make decisions and operationalize those decisions. The casinos that can pivot quickly with their data will have the advantage.
These four principles are:
- Analytics follows the data
- Analytics is more than algorithms
- Data and analytics should be available to everyone
- Analytics is a differentiator
Let’s spend a quick moment on each.
Analytics follows the data.
What does that mean? This means that wherever you have data, you have a need for analytics. Data without analytics has no value. One critical piece of analytics is bringing the right technology to the right place at the right time. This can be broken down into a few areas.
Do you have all the data in one place to easily analyze holistically? Do you have tools in place to put that data together into a story? This could be technology or personal.
For me, this summarizes to: Have the data, have the data organized for holistic view, have access to that view, have someone who can put that view together into stories and recommendations.
Analytics is more than algorithms.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my algorithms, but the value of analytics is creating data-driven results and then solving the business problems by operationalizing the results. Not only do you need to be able to create the story from the data, but you also need to be able to take that story and execute on the information you learned from it to improve your operations. This is the meat of analytics. So many times, I see companies get good data and then they are too busy to change anything from what they just learned. How can a company get better than this? Well, this leads to the third point. Make the data available to everyone. Integrating analytics into a visual suite that is user-friendly and giving that one version of the truth story to everyone.
Data and analytics should be available to everyone.
Making data available for everyone is critical for success. The analytics and information need to expand outside of the analytics departments and the executive teams. Socializing the data so that “everyone is using the same information to make the best decisions is a differentiator. I have been at casinos where in the same department, team members are using different data to summarize play or profitability for a player. Giving everyone the same number to use in a quick, easy format creates guest consistency and less errors for team members. This increases revenue in itself in expense and in FTE time and that is one department. Roll this out everywhere and have the entire property using one version of the truth with the same underlying data and you now have a huge advantage over your competition.
Analytics is a differentiator.
We live in a world where everyone has analytics. We also are in an industry where there is a large focus on analytics. What you do with your data matters. You need to ask questions like, what data has the most value? How can we deploy our changes faster? Where can we improve with analytics? Where can we automate and support performance breakthroughs?
As you think through these questions, it is critical to make sure that you are spending your resources to apply analytics in areas of the business where it will have the most impact. It is also imperative to create a culture around digital transformation and analytical thinking, and to focus on new business opportunities that monetize data with analytics.
These principles will provide a defined scope that can define your approach to data and analytics and fuel your successful digital transformation. Each one of these principles is key and doing all of them will be the differentiator.
