Analytics is new mantra in data management

WE LIVE in an environment infested with data. There is big data (and by corollary, small data) but data is not tantamount to insight and more significantly, data does not mean "measure". Management guru Peter Drucker said: "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it". That begs the question: What do we measure?

From countries to corporations, there are clear trends towards outcomes and sometimes, qualitative (and therefore less measurable) goals. This brings with it a challenge for traditional mathematicians, accountants and economists.

There is also the reality that in many situations, the input is measurable, while the output is not. Marketers battle all the time with trying to measure sales or market share effect from a marketing or advertising campaign. Some ROI (return on investment) techniques are in vogue, but nothing is perfect.