Over the years, Information Age has written a great deal about analytics and business intelligence (BI). We’ve seen some step-change advances in technology and reported on some very impressive case studies.

This month’s cover story by Andrew Lawrence highlights a significant advance in the way some businesses are using analytics. They are part of a trend that has been gathering pace over the past several years, but which is as yet only practised by a small group of early adopters (albeit many of them very large companies). We might call this ‘hard analytics’ – the uncompromising, rigorous adoption of BI to drive decision making and behaviour at almost every turn.

Tom Davenport, a renowned and respected information management guru, labels organisations that think and act this way as “analytics competitors”. As he highlights in his book, Competing on Analytics: The new science of winning, the use of analytics at these organisations has become a core competitive differentiator. Such companies invest very heavily in the technology, create large and deep pools of expertise, and, crucially, they trust and act on the results of the findings. If appropriate, the direct involvement of humans in the decision-making process is bypassed altogether.

BI for these companies is not an academic exercise; they don’t produce and distribute reports that no-one reads – they live – or die – on the data generated by their analytics systems. Everything they do is treated like a scientific experiment, with a control group put in place wherever possible. They strive to eliminate bad decisions, which, as we all know, happen in all organisations from time to time, sometimes with huge consequences.

The article’s accompanying case study of analytics at Harrah’s Entertainment illustrates the effectiveness of this approach. It is one of the most compelling case studies that you are ever likely to read. If any executive at your organisation makes light of the use of analytics, put it on his or her desk. And wait for them to start quoting Gary Loveman, the former Harvard Business School professor who runs Harrah’s on an analytics engine.

You may also want to join Information Age at its annual analytics event, Business Intelligence 2007 in London, 22 March (see page 12 for details of your complimentary invitation).