I often hear analytics as just one pod, but I really think there are two types. One I call “analytics at rest” and the other “analytics in motion.”
Analytics at rest means using analytics to make strategic decisions, investments, and policy changes. Rather than going around a conference room, referencing PowerPoint decks, and polling executives, leadership uses analytics to make those decisions.
In analytics in motion, we optimize the continual decisions at an organization, both on the buy and sell side, that are made every day. At a trucking company, for example, that means where to place a load, whether to aggregate loads and move them via truckload, which mode to use, which customer to serve, which pilot or driver to assign, where to pick up next, when to hold, and when to go. That’s analytics in motion.