Selling Analytics to Your CEO

The C-Suite loves its Executive Summaries. And fortunately or unfortunately for the rest of us, the first step in integrating an analytics program throughout the company involves getting executive buy-in. A high level document on foundational analytics is a good idea for every organization. For many CEOs, a no B.S. perspective with clear concept definitions and hard goals gives him or her the inputs necessary to decide to make room in a budget. But how can you demonstrate the best course for mining data to build sales, drive marketing outcomes, and bolster the company's market position?

Most CEOs have had it with lip service on the nirvana of Big Data. To put it bluntly, your CEO wants the walk--not more talk. The best way to start talking about an analytics program is to think like the CFO and match data points to revenue end points. While thinking about collecting data is a critical step, knowing what to do with it is even more critical.

Is your company ready for a total company data program?

Most companies have data. But most of that data is challenging to mine and probably not aligned with a specific department. Let's say you're in Marketing. The first question to answer for your CEO requires an understanding of if you are funding a Marketing Analytics program, or fighting to include Marketing Analytics in a larger, company-wide program.

In a recent article in Forbes.com, Ken Makovsky reported some of the highlights of the "CEO2CEO" conference lecture on analytics sponsored by Chief Executive Magazine. He writes, "A comprehensive data program will cover the design of the data retrieval, the actual retrieval, and the people to perform the analysis and acquire the insights." But not ...