Data & Analytics: At the Heart of What We Do at L.E.K.

My name is David Jordan. I head up the European Data & Analytics team. I’ve been here for five years. Data and analytics [D&A] is at the heart of everything we do at L.E.K. Consulting. It underpins all of our recommendations that we provide clients and our advice is steeped in rigorous analysis. We have a distinctive democratised model whereby we want all of our consulting staff to be the ones to use data analytics tools, techniques and data sets as part of their consulting work. Importantly, we don't have a separate analytics team to answer all of the analytics questions. Actually, we think it makes for a much better quality answer for our clients if it's the people that really understand the client context, the wider business context — they're the ones actually doing the analysis and providing the guidance to their clients.

We have a team of specialists that are there on hand to provide expert coaching, guidance and direct support where necessary as well. We operate a distinctive democratised model here at L.E.K. whereby we want all of our consulting staff to be the ones to use data analytics as part of their work. They're supported by a specialist team of D&A experts who provide expert coaching and guidance and get involved when necessary as well. Crucially, there's no analytics lab where all the analytics questions get sent. We think it makes for a much better quality answer for our clients if it's the consulting staff that are the ones to use analytics as part of their work.

We’re technology agnostic — we're not beholden to any particular tool and not predisposed to selling any type of solution. We have our own set of preferred tools, but we are flexible when it comes to the tools of our clients. The impact of data analytics can be enormous. Data-driven organisations are outperforming their peers, but we're often finding that clients are not extracting the full value that they can from their data. A good example of this is how we helped an underperforming asset rental business transform the way it looked at problems around pricing, its network and service delivery. We used our data analytics capabilities to do so. And another example is how we helped an industrial distributor free up £80 million worth of inventory from its warehousing. We did this by building a sophisticated machine-learning and simulation model that forecasted the way in which its inventory was used. This allowed them to move towards a just-in-time inventory model that freed up that capital.

We could also help clients build out this data analytics capability themselves. This can span the underlying blueprint that sets up how they should be configured all the way to delivering training to functional teams or indeed a centre of excellence within the organisation. Businesses today are collecting more and more data but are not making best use of it. We can help them unlock the value within that data by applying it to commercial problems that their business is facing. We helped a UK high street retailer understand its store formats and also the products that it was offering in those stores. This allowed them to both minimise the number of SKUs that they were offering, reducing cost, but also making sure that they're able to meet the needs of the clients and the customers that they had coming into their stores so they didn't go away feeling like they weren't able to get what they wanted in-store.