2021 in the rearview mirror
Time flies when you are having fun.
As 2021 draws to a close, I would like to share a few key takeaways from the past 12 months, both at the macro level and from our entrepreneurial project.
🗺 Main trends
In a year when we passed the 100 successful projects threshold, it's not easy to summarize. But let's cover three of the most frequent themes we heard, as a (theoretical) client would describe them.
🤨 "I get it. Data is useful. Where do I start?"
To some, the COVID crisis was, to paraphrase a client, "better than a real-life proof-of-concept I was afraid to ask for". In other words, in such a volatile, unpredictable environment, avoiding analytics is simply dangerous.
Knowing one should do something is not the same as having a clear plan, however.
That's why roadmapping exercises were still highly sought after, even by large organizations who were eager to start from a blank canvas, considering new data sources and modern technologies.
Having a plan is not the same as executing it. Dwight D. Eisenhower famously once said, “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”
There is a parallel to draw in growing analytics competencies. We'll always advocate for projects that fit an overall strategy rather than some "new shiny thing" that everyone will have forgotten by the time we’re back with our 2022 retrospective 😇
👤 "I don't know my customers anymore."
You might be surprised to learn that many organizations have no clue who their customers are. And it's not just the small businesses. Today, a lot of initiatives still launch based on hunches, popularly held beliefs rooted in dubious sectorial assumptions.
The plethora of internal and external data, coupled with modern techniques, leaves no more room for excuses when it comes to understanding demand dynamics.
Thankfully, a lot of leaders are waking up to this new reality. The time to impress by saying "I think that" is coming to a close. Efficient teams put aside the ego and the obligation of being right in favor of validated learning. "Let's test it together and find out" is the rallying cry of successful management teams.
🦾 "Take us to the next level."
At Agilytic, we love the cutting edge, and deploying the latest techniques to production is always hugely intellectually rewarding. But we do that in a way that is aligned with strategic objectives.
It did hurt our chances on some opportunities, as we were unwilling to sprinkle enough "fairy dust" in some proposals. But we remain convinced of the long-term benefits of this principled approach.
Therefore, when we do “cutting edge,” the results are worth it. Two main themes did take most of our attention this year:
The inevitable transition to cloud services, whose development continues to impress from ingesting and processing data up to serving dashboards and predictive models. More than ever, technical capabilities are rarely the limiting factors in projects. Ten years ago, the slogan was "there's an app for that"; now is the era of "there's an API or a cloud service for that".
Computer vision and document management projects that yielded the most valuable results in many situations, for example:
Back-office efficiency in speed, error reductions, and costs
Risks associated with fraud
We will double-down on those themes next year and develop capabilities in many others. Read on to find out how and stay tuned for upcoming case studies.
💗 The "teenage years" of Agilytic
I like to say the Agilytic project is in its "teenage years". No longer a kid or naïve about ourselves and the world around us, we’ve gained experience over the accumulated projects, and increased team competencies, allowing us to take on new types of projects. However, we’re still idealists in some ways... and prone to mistakes and early heartbreaks. A couple of themes and learnings stand out to me this year.
🧱 Focus on what will not change
When all is said and done, I am convinced the big investments in an entrepreneurial project, an individual career, or life, in general, are ideas that stand the test of time.
Love him or hate him, but I think Jeff Bezos hit the bullseye when he said this:
I very frequently get the question: “What’s going to change in the next 10 years?” That’s a very interesting question.
I almost never get the question: “What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?” And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two.
You can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. […]
So we know the energy we put into these things today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.
The way we transpose this in our long-term vision is to adapt to technological best practices that come and eventually go, but stick to fundamental long-term assumptions:
Relentlessly advocate for a pragmatic use of analytics as a source of competitive advantage.
Apply a “genuine desire to help” principle in our business development efforts.
Never compromise on talent, even if it means slower short-term growth.
Support long-term individual development through our Academy and Lab initiatives.
Commit to long-term contribution to sustainability efforts, starting with our 1% for the planet membership.
🎢 An emotional rollercoaster
In 2021, we've experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows. What's not apparent through the LinkedIn positivity prism is that there are bad days. Days of bad news, doubt, uncertainty.
There are a few things I try to do to stay on course.
First, I look at the trajectory, not specific events (good or bad). It's too easy to get bogged down by a negative development or carried away by a small win. Yet, the safest way to cycle remains looking ahead, not at our feet.
Second, we surround ourselves with a network we can share our respective experiences with. I cannot stress how important this is; having people in your corner who will help you take some perspective and de-dramatize. Some of the most meaningful exchanges of the past years have been with our mentors, advisors, and fellow “entrepreneurs.” I hope those exchanges were not unidirectional and that I was of assistance in some cases.
If you are reading this and are starting your business, please don’t hesitate to reach out if you think I can help.
🛡 Built-in resilience
The last learning of this year was summed up by Olivier, who wisely told me “organizations are resilient.”
Never has this been so clear than this year.
Beyond individual ups and downs, Agilytic is more than ever a collective project. The whole achieves more than the sum of its parts. Small groups form and progress on parallel projects, each contributing in their specific ways to the growth of the structure. It’s one of the most rewarding things of my professional life.
Because of it all, more than five years on, it is still the hardest I have ever worked, but also the best job I ever had.
Maybe it will be yours too, so why don’t you see for yourself and check our open positions?
