What is an insight team all about?

How to capture succinctly the uniqueness of an insight team? How to ‘elevator ride’ describe what are the key benefits of having such a team? In my mind, it is first important to make a clear distinction between Business Intelligence (BI) which is about dissipating meaningful data to the people who need it. A good BI is essential for successful Analytical Intelligence (AI) as it frees the team from the all-consuming bush fire fighting.

I like the title of an Experian document “Analytical insight: bringing science to the art of marketing”. One of the section headings, “Turn data into intelligence ” makes a good stab at the question.

How about “A team of knowledge workers turning data into intelligence, insight and action using advanced tools and techniques”:

•  Knowledge workers = highly qualified and experienced
• Turning data = Evidence Based
•   Intelligence = that backwards mirror – BI
• Insight = statistical analysis (forecasting, basket analysis, churn analysis, channel optimisation, etc.)
• Action = informing strategic decisions (e.g. how many sales people do we need) and driving tactical activities (where should we place them and whom should they meet)
• Advanced tools = software such as sas, JMP, mapinfo – definitely not toys like Excel
• Advanced techniques = more than just means and guesses – NLMIXED, Time series analysis, Neural
• Networks, factor analysis, etc.

Another of my attempts is “Increasing revenue and reducing costs through evidence based analytics”