MIT Sloan Management Review

There are 52 million Latinos in the United States, with $1.5 trillion of purchasing power.

Entravision Communications Corporation a Spanish-language media company, reaches about 96% of that U.S. Latino audience through its numerous television and radio stations and digital platforms. It uses that extraordinary reach to provide media solutions to marketers interested in tapping into the Latino consumer market.

In a webinar recorded in March 2013, the speakers present findings from the recent global study they co-authored, “From Value to Vision: Reimagining the Possible with Data Analytics.” In their study, they identified leaders of the analytics revolution they call “Analytical Innovators.” These companies share three key characteristics: a widely shared belief that data is a core asset; more effective use of more data for faster results; and support for analytics by senior managers shift power and resources to those who make data-driven decisions.

Just before the New Year, New York Times writer Steve Lohr wrote a blog, Big Data is Great. But So Is Intuition, which addresses a question we here at MIT Sloan Management Review have been researching for the past year: With the growing potential of data and analytics, where is the shifting line between analytics and intuition?

Based on a global executive survey with 2,500+ respondents and interviews with more than two dozen executives and academics, MIT Sloan Management Review and SAS Institute Inc. report on the distinctive characteristics and habits of companies that are very effective at using analytics to compete and innovate. This report offers an in-depth analysis of Analytical Innovators, the early leaders in the analytics revolution that is changing how many companies are managed.

Fortune 500 companies are rushing to make big data investments. Who is leading this charge? What are they doing? What are best practices and which practices should be avoided? A recent survey of C-level and function heads from Fortune 500 companies offers a unique glimpse into how the captains of industry are thinking about big data and how their companies are changing because of new insights gleaned from big data analyses.

Experts agree: Business and technology are on the cusp of a management revolution, brought on by big data and data analytics. A healthy dose of skepticism — and intuition — are required arsenal.

Companies are realizing that data analytics are now at the center of their organization, rather than the edge. That’s having an impact, according to Bruno Aziza of SiSense.

Does large amounts of data equal large amounts of new knowledge? Sometimes it does. Applying analytics techniques to social network data reveals new things about how people make decisions, say two Facebook researchers. There are also advantages that come from the ability to more quickly find patterns in data than was previously possible, says a scientist at Microsoft Research. But the CEO of Personal.com predicts that many companies will find that data analysis is not a core skill.

How can executives make sense of — and, as critically, gain competitive advantage from — the data deluge? Thoughts from Andrew McAfee, a principal research scientist and associate director at the MIT Center for Digital Business, in a video interview with MIT SMR.

Most companies seem to be better at collecting data than using what they collect to create value. As companies increase the amount and variety of data they collect, the gap between data collection and insight generation may increase. This blogpost highlights several hurdles that need to be overcome to bridge this gap.

Today’s companies process more than 60 terabytes of information annually, about 1,000 times more than a decade ago. But how well are companies managing the data and capitalizing on the opportunities it presents?

To answer these questions, seven IT research centers studied data-related activities at 26 corporations and large nonprofit organizations. The research shows that while the IT unit is competent at storing and protecting data, it cannot make decisions that turn data into business value.

The state of Massachusetts is a major U.S. center of big data, says Stephen O’Leary, an M&A advisor with Aeris Partners and executive committee member of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council. It’s only poised to get hotter.

“Creatives” such as marketers rely more on intuition than on data analysis or even consultation with colleagues when making decisions, says an Accenture Customer Analytics Survey. CIOs can combat that resistance by IDing metrics that matter and finding advocates open to new approaches.

An April 2011 report by the IBM Institute for Business Value looks at “Digital Transformation: Creating new business models where digital meets physical.” A vPanel conversation April 27 will talk about how companies are trying to keep up with connected customers.

There has been enormous progress in embedding the use of analytics at lower levels of companies. But according to Thomas H. Davenport, professor at Babson College and one of the best-known thinkers about analytics and business intelligence, the upper levels of companies haven’t kept up.

In his book Managing to Learn, John Shook deconstructs the problem-solving journey of one manager and his mentor, and the management mechanism that guided them. The backstory? Shook knows the journey firsthand.

A framework for aligning organizational and technical resources and capabilities to leverage explicit knowledge and expertise.