Non-Profit Digital Transformation

In the work Competing on Analytics (2017), Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris (2017) created the Five Stages of Analytical Competition which examines where an organization is between being “Analytically Impaired (Stage 1) to being a “Analytical Competitor” (Stage 5). Analytically impaired organization does not have substantial executive interest and does not have data analysts or a data program (Davenport & Harris, 2017). A stage 2 organization may have “Localized Analytics” being used in specific departments, but there is no specific strategy or widespread implementation. These organizations recognize a positive ROI using individual applications, but the effort is restricted to a few functional activities (Davenport & Harris, 62). Organizations with Analytical Aspirations are in the process of implementing strategy which is based on analytics and use data to improve a capability rather than a function. Stage 4 Analytical Companies use analytics for differentiation from their competitors, and analytics is seen as an organizational driver (Davenport & Harris, 62). Finally Analytical Competitors use analytics as a core part of their strategy and analytics themselves are “the primary driver of performance and value” (Davenport & Harris 62).

Tools and Techniques: Davenport’s 5 Stages of Analytical Competition

The DELTA Model examines the analytical capacity of an organization across 5 dimensions and is a tool which helps organizations develop a digital transformation roadmap by comparing their current state to their future state across 5 dimensions: Data, Enterprise, Leadership, Targets, and Analysts (Davenport & Harris, 46). The following matrix (reproduced from Davenport’s text) shows the 5 Stages of Analytical Competition on the x axis and the DELTA framework on the y axis. I have highlighted in yellow the stage at which the organization is at in each of these areas and included Davenport & Harris’ description of organizations at the specific stage. ‘Data’ represents the use of data by an organization as a “Strategic asset” (Davenport & Harris, pp 178).  ‘Enterprise’ represents the organizations ability to integrate their analytical capabilities throughout the federated organization. ‘Leadership’ evaluates the types of leaders and their orientation to analytics, and ‘Targets’ represent the target objectives of the organization’s analytics program. Finally, ‘Analysts’ looks at the role that analysts play within the organization.

Thomas Davenport’s Five Stages of Analytical Competition

Beginning with Data some teams are handwriting data from some systems to import into others. There is no centralized repository, although some individuals do use an access database; the process however is entirely manual and changes from person to situation. There is also little to no use of integrated systems (which is the first solution we are providing them by creating automation scripts). Generally speaking, the culture of the organization has not embraced data or the value which it brings. For these reasons I have ranked the organization as a Stage 1 in both ‘Data’ as well as “Enterprise.’

Conversely, the executive leadership team believes very strongly in the importance and use of data, and even manually create dashboards for their team using Microsoft Word to visually share their insights. The executive leadership team also has begun to link strategy to data, and has provided me with their 3 and 5 year strategic plan which I will use to build the transformation roadmap. One major roadblock however is they do not have any on premise analysts to work with their data; although their executive leadership has ambitious goals, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and as a whole the organization is at a Stage 1.