Increasingly, companies are utilizing business analytics to make strategic decisions.  For example, Dunkin’Brands went public in 2014 with a loyalty program that enables the company to harvest data from customers to determine their habits.  If you normally visit Dunkin’ Donuts for example in the morning, the firm may soon send you offers to entice you to purchase some donuts in the afternoon or evening.  Netflix has used business analytics lately mount a comeback in the industry and to spur a surge in its number of customers.  Netflix uses data analysis increasingly to refine its movie recommendations to particular customers as well as to identify which movies and television shows to license or develop.  A recent article by Whillhite says business analytics “is the art and science of collecting and combing through vast amounts of information for insights that aren’t apparent on a smaller scale.”  Data mining, and in general utilizing an analytical approach to all phases of strategic management, is rapidly burgeoning into a necessary prerequisite for success in hundreds of firms globally.  Interestingly, this book leads all rival strategic management textbooks in advocating a systematic, analytical approach to strategic planning.  Otherwise, emotion, politics, “experience,” and subjectivity too often prevents identification and consideration of key facts, figures, and trends in choosing among numerous feasible alternative strategies, and implementing and monitoring the execution of those strategies.

Source:  James Willhite, “Getting Started in ‘Big Data,’ Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2014, B7.