Firm's $500 million investment aimed to deliver 'transformational business services'
Being able to analyze an ever-increasing volume and variety of information now sits at the top of the business agenda as organizations grapple with gaining real insights that help improve business performance and pro-actively manage risk. After an initial period, when Big Data was an optional extra for most businesses, data analytics is now widely accepted as a business imperative. For this reason, EY has established a Global Analytics Center of Excellence (COE) and will commit to a $500 million multi-year investment to deliver 'transformational change' to clients by combining analytics with business acumen, domain and functional skills, says Chris Mazzei, EY Global Analytics COE leader and Global Chief Analytics Officer. Mazzei sat down recently with Consulting to discuss the COE and its overall potential.
Consulting: So, this is quite an aggressive investment in the analytics space. Why?
Mazzei: For business leaders, analytics is no longer just a technology issue, it is a strategy and operational issue. Big data and analytics is a disruptive innovation that is transforming our everyday lives. Enterprises need a holistic plan for creating competitive advantage, identifying opportunities and ultimately measuring value.
Consulting: Talk about the thinking behind the launch of the COE?
Mazzei: In late 2013, EY launched a new initiative called Vision 2020 and as a big part of that was the realization that analytics was going to drive the next phase of growth for EY. For us, it's both transforming existing offerings we have like audit and tax, as well as the creation of more discrete analytics services and offerings. It's not just about building an analytics practice but rather transforming what will be a $50 billion professional services organization and how we deliver insights in all of our services. We have skills and expertise that sit in many parts of the business, and the COE was put in place to provide leadership across that and to coordinate those efforts we've agreed make sense to be doing on a more enterprise-wide basis.
Consulting: What's the potential of the COE and the overall analytics market?
Mazzei: The market estimates that are out there—$10 billion today and going to $50 billion down the road—but we think that vastly understates it. That's discrete analytics business but doesn't touch on how tax or audit might be transformed through the use of analytics. We take a more business-focused view and, as a result, see the market as much bigger than even some of these estimates you see out there.
Consulting: When it comes to clients, what are some of the sweet spots for the COE?
Mazzei: Industries that have access to more mature data. Think about financial services companies that have data and are looking for ways to better use it. Healthcare is another one that jumps out. That industry is transforming into an outcomes-based model, and that's a massive transformation and there's no doubt analytics will play a huge role.
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