Businesses continuously struggle to achieve the desired results from analytics, but continue to invest in it. How can business leaders ensure that they secure their return on investment (ROI) in an area that is difficult to understand for non-specialists? Marc Vollenweider’s new book, Mind+Machine – A Decision Model for Optimizing and Implementing Analytics, is a tool that allows every middle and senior manager to get the most out of their organization’s data analytics potential. The book debunks the most common fallacies about data analytics, and offers a methodology to ensure that every analytics application is functioning efficiently and produces the greatest possible ROI.

Big data and artificial intelligence continue to be buzzwords, as reflected in many business agendas, but are they successful? The fundamental purpose of data analytics is to support decisions with facts and insights. Success in analytics means that the right decision maker receives the right insight delivered in the right format at the right time. Anything else lessens the impact and, perhaps more significantly, reduces the ROI. Many organizations struggle to achieve the desired results. “Clients tell me that they struggle to make sense out of data flows in their company. It is not about the availability of data, but how to use it to make better business decisions. What I found is that the issue lies in the balance between what I call the mind and the machine. The mind is the human, of course. And the machine includes all of these new and helpful technologies such as automation tools, machine learning, workflow tools, and analytic engines,” Marc Vollenweider says. “The solution is simple: only when smart minds and smart machines cooperate can businesses make full use of the analytics value chain.”

Mind-only analytics where humans do all of the work is too slow and too costly. Machine-only analytics rarely delivers the insights needed. The book, Mind+Machine – A Decision Model for Optimizing and Implementing Analytics, is a guide to demystify and simplify the world of analytics.

About the author

Marc Vollenweider is the CEO and co-founder of Evalueserve. A former partner at McKinsey & Company in Zurich and India, Marc developed a deep interest in the world of data analytics, particularly how human minds and smart machines can successfully complement each other. He saw the potential for companies to enhance productivity, shorten their time-to-market, improve quality, and gain new capabilities by leveraging mind+machine. Marc’s fascination with innovation has led to the establishment of a series of internal ventures at Evalueserve. He is the co-inventor of the digital model of InsightBee, Evalueserve’s pay-as-you-go research and analytics solution.

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