Analyze This

Another blurb about my favorite book “Thank you for being late – The Optimist Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations” by Thomas Friedman.  The author was talking analytics in the book and the benefit of measuring things. I used that thinking and added on to it my go-to belief that if you can learn about your client’s business, how they make money and what keeps them up at night you can be much more valuable to them.  Here’s an example of knowing the numbers and if you only knew you could make a huge difference.  Friedman describes that CEO’s of railroads keep their fleet’s velocity in focus. “Velosity of fleets tends to be between twenty and twenty-five miles per hour.  This tends to be the average miles per hour that a locomotive travels in a day – twenty-two…the difference (for the owner) between twenty three and twenty two is worth $250 million dollars in annual profit.”  I know most of us do not work in the rail business but think about what your client’s business is driven by.  Knowing that sort of information for your client would make your solutions much more vital and focused to their benefit.  Sometimes we simply do what a client asks without really knowing the huge impacts you could be making by truly, and in some detail, getting into their brains and knowing their business.