Description
Gartner predicts that analytics will revolutionize how we conduct business. By 2019 worldwide analytics implementation are estimated to reach $187 billion (Olavsrud 2016). Unfortunately, many internal IT departments lack the business acumen, financial resources and data science expertise to initiate analytics initiatives (Goldberg 2012). This leads functional departments, armed with use cases, trying to launch their own analytic program. We call this shadow analytics. To add insight to this shadow analytics phenomenon, this paper uses an in-depth longitudinal case study of one department’s shadow analytics initiative. Using technology affordances and constraints theory, we investigate what enables and constrains a shadow analytics initiative. This study offers practical insights to others trying to launch an analytics program and shows a shift in client vendor outsourcing projects towards, agile delivery, experimentation and failure acceptance.
Recommended Citation
Koch, Hope and Peters, Uchenna, "Shadow Analytics" (2017). AMCIS 2017 Proceedings. 8.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2017/DataScience/Presentations/8
Shadow Analytics
Gartner predicts that analytics will revolutionize how we conduct business. By 2019 worldwide analytics implementation are estimated to reach $187 billion (Olavsrud 2016). Unfortunately, many internal IT departments lack the business acumen, financial resources and data science expertise to initiate analytics initiatives (Goldberg 2012). This leads functional departments, armed with use cases, trying to launch their own analytic program. We call this shadow analytics. To add insight to this shadow analytics phenomenon, this paper uses an in-depth longitudinal case study of one department’s shadow analytics initiative. Using technology affordances and constraints theory, we investigate what enables and constrains a shadow analytics initiative. This study offers practical insights to others trying to launch an analytics program and shows a shift in client vendor outsourcing projects towards, agile delivery, experimentation and failure acceptance.