The statement of 2011 is that “data is the new oil” and there is no doubt that being able to create and act on data insights will be one of the key abilities in order to get ahead of the competition. In reality this is nothing new, but in the last couple of years the webanalytics has been acknowledged by more and more companies as a crucial part of their business.
At the same time as we are moving towards a world where web analytics become a must have on all websites most companies still are far away from truly understanding how to mine the data and how to create actionable insights from them. One of the main problems could be that the web analytics evangelists out there today do not agree between themselves neither.
On one side the web anaytics tool providers often argue strongly in favour of their tools and on the other side web analytics “gurus” argue that the analyst is everything (ie the 90/10 model).
Both arguments, however, are truths with strong modifications. Without the tools the analyst is nothing and without the analyst the tool is nothing. The wrong tools or the wrong people will also create problems.
The first step in arriving to the point where you are become a leader in data intelligence and decision management is to understand the condition for deciding which people to hire and tools to choose.
This condition maybe the most critical part of the three factors that contribute to insights. I have chosen to call it environment.
Environment decides the needs and availability of data based on the type of company, service, strategy and purpose.
Not all companies need the same type or amount of data. On one hand too much data will often lead to clutter and lack of ability to convert data to insights and actions. On the other hand lack of data might make you miss out on opportunities and threats that can have large impact on your business. Deciding what is more and less important is the first step to healthy digital data intelligence.
With the strong focus web analytics has received lately one often forgets other just as important sources of data such as adservers, business intelligence, crm, social media monitoring, competitive analytics, user testing and so on. All of these can be equally important sources of insights and real insights are almost never generated by one of these alone.
By tapping int the right sources you can get the insights to make decisions that will increase the results of my investments and help me make the right decisions for my company.
So how do you arrive there?
I do not offer a silver bullet that can solve this for you, only this advise: True insight lies in the between. It is not solely created by a tool or an analyst. It is found by creating a perfect balance between environment (information needs and availability), people and tools. By studying the environment and pairing the right people with the right tools based on needs a company can truly move from data collecting chaos to insight driven communication and decision management.
If you do not know how to get there you can hire an optimisation or web strategy consultant to help you, but it is important that you dedicate time and resources to find and understand the data that will help your company grow and prosper.
Cheers 
