(US and Canada) Rahul Goyal, Senior Director of Enterprise Data and Analytics at Optum, and President and CEO, Yubi Health, speaks with Ernie Ostic, SVP of Products, Manta, about his role’s various aspects and the importance of having a deep understanding of the business.

Goyal says his primary job is to help others understand how to leverage data to create value. He stresses that the key to success in projects within analytics organizations is a deep understanding of the business, the domain, and the goal.

He maintains that at Optum, a primary focus is how to provide a good customer experience while driving members toward better drug-cost alternatives and medication adherence and building programs that influence the health care trajectory in a positive direction.

A large organization, Optum supports various health care aspects. Hence, the definition of “customer” varies with each business under the Optum umbrella. 

Goyal maintains, however, that one needs to understand a typical business’s whole value chain  and the critical touch points. This helps improve the product or services, not only in terms of  cost but also in speed, access, etc. 

While there may be various approaches to research and analytics, it all depends on where customers are and how organizations can best serve their interests, he concludes.