In the last few years, analytics has moved from peripheral IT function to being central to business strategy and operations. In the process, companies have spent millions to improve their big data and analytics capabilities. However, very few organisations have seen a significant return on this investment. This is because companies have spent money on the technology that produces analytics but relatively little on the human element of analytics – the ability to consume analytics.

In a recent survey from EY and Forbes Insights called Analytics: Don't Forget the Human Element, we uncovered many of the issues that companies in South Africa and around the world face in getting value out of their investment of time, energy and money in their analytics programs.

While investing in new technology is certainly important to an effective analytics program, the technology only "produces" analytics. What is missing is the behavioral alignment required to move from insights to action to value. The key components required to "consume" analytics throughout the organisation are culture, organisational processes, skills of the business "users" and individual employee's incentives.

How to consume analytics

On an individual level, analytics must be used at the point where decisions are made to effect change. For this to happen, three key factors must be considered:

Incentives: Rewards and incentives must align with the actions of the individuals who actually need to make a decision. The survey found that more than two-fifths of the higher performing companies offer greater opportunities for promotion and advancement for individuals.

Decision Bias: Everyone has a bias. In business, this can lead to the rejection of analytics-driven insights which often leads to poor decision making. To overcome this, companies must provide training to help individuals become more aware of this subconscious thinking.

Capabilities: Training helps employees understand and make use of the data and insights. The recent survey found that on-site seminars, workshops, off-site education programs or mentoring by analytics leaders were most preferable.

At an organisational level, analytics success requires an ongoing commitment to make effective use of data analytics. This can be achieved in three ways:

Leadership and Culture: Leadership is crucial to having a big data and analytics program that delivers value. It's important to note that effective analytics leaders are rare, as they need to have in-depth knowledge of the business, analytics and statistics, while also being an innovator, a network builder and a team leader.

Strategy: In the survey, executives at leading organisations all agree that analytics is central to their business strategy. However, they don't simply ask what their business strategy is, but rather how their business strategy can be shaped to compete in a digital, analytics-enabled world.

Organisation and Processes: The most valuable way for an organisation to "consume" data is for the right analytic insights to be delivered to the right part of the business at the right time.

Shifting the balance from producing analytics to consuming analytics doesn't happen at the flick of a switch. However, once the balance shifts, the benefits become clear. For example:

• A national rail operator wanted to deliver a safer, more reliable and more efficient railway. They put iPads into the hands of their engineers to better record data about the network. The training that these engineers received helped them also consume analytics driven insights, resulting in quicker and better engineering decisions that benefited the overall service on the rail network.

• Through analytics, a pharma company found an employee repeatedly using a legitimate code for his expenses, but noting each payment as a "gift for puppy." The repeated use of the word puppy created red flags for auditors and the payments were found to be fraudulent.

Within the next few years, data analytics will become commonplace in all businesses. To avoid losing competitive advantage, business leaders should act now to ensure the human element of analytics is embedded within their company.

* By Chris Mazzei, EY Global Chief Analytics Officer and Berry Diepeveen, IT Advisory leader at EY Africa.