There are plenty of examples of companies using data analytics to help boost sales and reduce costs. Similarly, doctors are enlisting analytics applications to diagnose disease more accurately, and athletes have tapped them to enhance performance. While improved computing capacity and specialized tools have enabled this performance, at the heart of it is human curiosity. Ultimately, using data analytics effectively requires the human element.
Consider the police department in Ontario’s Halton region, which encompasses four municipalities. The department developed a system that collects information from building security logs, officer activity records, cruiser GPS data, email messages and 911 phone calls. By organizing all that data, the police can predict where attention is most likely required and dispatch officers proactively, reducing wait times for citizens and idle time for officers. While it’s clear that software was key to making this happen, the initiative was championed by a few experienced police officers who foresaw a pattern in their assignments and collaborated with data scientists to turn their suspicions into a systematic model.