While strategy development will always require creative and thoughtful executives to set aspirations and make bold choices, analytics tools can give organisations an edge.

Advanced analytics can be used to accomplish the following:

• Reduce bias in decisions by calibrating the likelihood of your strategy succeeding before you allocate resources. Many forecasts tend to be overly optimistic, so incorporating an outside view is invaluable in informing decisions.
• Unearth new growth opportunities by leveraging external data sources, organisations can identify potential new applications for their product.
• Identify early-stage trends by painting a real-time picture of how your business context is unfolding so that you can trigger big moves before your competitors do. Tools such as sentiment analysis can help gain timely perspectives on customer sentiment or reputational risk, this is especially important for organisations testing bolder strategies.
• Anticipate complex market dynamics by generating proprietary insights about the combined impact of myriad forces. Mathematical modelling and simulation can be used to support scenario planning including trade-offs, forecast market demand under different scenarios, and help managers understand and predict competitive responses or customer behaviours

For companies looking to scale up their operations, both from a size and geography point of view, insights such as changes in operating models and growth scenarios are invaluable. Expansion is an expensive business, so using the company’s data and connecting it to make more informed, accurate decisions will help ensure that they don’t burn through valuable capital.

Spreadsheets remain in use within most organisations and it’s easy to understand why. They are virtually cost free; a flexible ad hoc reporting tool and most people have a basic understanding of how to use one. The temptation is high to ‘throw together’ a quick spreadsheet to solve an immediate problem, rather than going through proper processes.

However, there is a distinct line between an ad hoc reporting tool and a scalable performance management solution. Spreadsheets however tempting, are a hidden productivity killer. IT expenses appear to be lower, when in reality, the cost to the business is much higher because processes are being performed poorly with spreadsheets.

For businesses requiring nimble decision making, building out parallel scenarios plans or investing in significant expansion programmes, spreadsheets are not the solution. When legacy technology is a barrier to digital transformation, it’s time to consider migration options. External organisations can often help with the migration, implementation or even training

There comes a point when spreadsheets can no longer support the business requirements. Supply and demand modelling by its nature requires flexibility in being able to extract, manipulate and visualise assorted data in a variety of ways. To make sure that everyone is on the same page so that errors of interpretation do not occur and eliminate subjectivity, leaders should embrace technology and data, reinvent core processes, and adopt new collaboration tools.

For further information, including practical tips for empowering the next generation of S&OP, download our guide.