Yesterday, AlixPartners announced a new collaboration with Palantir Technologies, bringing together AlixPartners’ value creation and execution expertise in helping companies transform at speed, with Palantir’s leading platform for large-scale, machine-enabled decision-making. Details of the announcement can be found here.
Pairing AlixPartners’ deep industry and functional expertise with Palantir’s technological capabilities will help our clients accelerate value-enhancing transformations in the midst of growing disruptions and drive measurable and sustainable performance improvement by providing:
- Real-time, cross-functional insights across numerous internal and external data sources, leveraging Palantir’s data integration capabilities and AlixPartners’ expertise in “what to look for and why it matters;”
- AI-enabled decision support built upon AlixPartners’ value creation experience; and
- The capability for institutionalized, system-enabled continuous learning by capturing decisions on the platform and measuring operational impact.
While these elements can drive value in every industry, there are several immediate challenges within telecom and media where the benefits are obvious:
- With the roll-out of 5G networks, telecoms need to (1) efficiently plan and manage CAPEX by shifting from length planning to daily, auditable processes, (2) drive rapid execution by empowering local network engineering teams while maintaining central control, and (3) proactively enable procurement teams to optimize sourcing decisions and supply chain resilience in times of commodity price inflation and supply shortages.
- With the proliferation of consumption channels, media are facing asset deployment questions to optimize engagement and revenue streams across promotion planning, pricing, and Customer Lifecycle Value (CLV).
Leaders of tomorrow will disrupt or be disrupted based on their ability to most effectively generate insights from the abundance of data embedded in their everyday processes:
- Sources and amounts of data are increasing geometrically. With more 5G-connected IoT devices, using that data to make smart decisions will be on every executive’s mind. Data collected from these semi-structured networks must be consolidated and deployed in a fashion that allows for actionable decision making.
- Media is a digital game. All forms of content are driven by digital assets (entertainment, news, gaming, e-books, etc.) and data, in the form of engagement metrics, is the currency upon which the industry transacts. Applying immediate and effective data analytics is essential for delivery of content to end users and growth in subscribers, but also drives cross-platform advertising revenues, empowering traditional media companies to serve their customers more dynamically.
There are three sets of issues to consider when dealing with disparate and unstructured data:
- Calibrate your current status. Identify pain points. Understand, assess, and prioritize which data to leverage.
- Make innovative analytics and data integration a central tenet of leadership’s performance. KPIs should focus on data that drives competitive advantage.
- Speak the language of data across all functions. Engineering, analytics, data science, and operations teams should be working on a centralized platform that captures not just data and insights but how those data and insights are impacting daily business decisions.
The reality is that the importance of data for these (and other) businesses isn’t anything new. But most businesses haven’t mastered it yet, and for those that are behind, the environment will only get more challenging going forward. And those that can get ahead of the curve will have a distinct competitive advantage in the years ahead.
Winners will be defined by those that leverage the deep lakes of information at their disposal and most effectively integrate data into their everyday processes and make smart and monetizable decisions that help keep pace with an increasingly disrupted world.