The analytics-driven tactics used by Oakland Athletics’ manager Billy Beane not only inspired the best-selling book and film Moneyball, but also a wave of imitators seeking to tap into the secret sauce that allowed Beane to over-achieve with the unfancied baseball team he was in charge of.

It perhaps is little surprise that whilst the technique allowed the unfancied Oakland team to punch above their weight when they alone were using it, as soon as everyone else jumped on board, it no longer gave them the edge.  Nonetheless, new research from the Rotman School of Management provides empirical evidence of this phenomenon.

“It’s like having a secret sauce,” the author explains. “When you have a secret sauce and nobody else knows about it, you have a competitive advantage. Once the secret sauce was outed, which was what happened with the book, everybody could imitate the Oakland A’s.”

Management innovation

A database was created with information about team payrolls, playing success, the use of analytics in that team and the contribution of each player to the team over a prolonged period between 1985 and 2013.

The data revealed that between 1997 and 2001 an analytics-driven approach was very rare, with just two teams deploying it in the MLB.  By 2002 it was catching on and three teams had adopted it, but by 2013, a whopping 75% had done so.  Perhaps unsurprisingly therefore, the approach was most effective up until 2003, which happened to be the year the Moneyball book was published.

The research highlights the value management innovations can bring to you, but only if your organization is the one of the few to utilize it.  The moral of the story is that if you have an innovation that is giving your organization an edge, the best thing to do is keep quiet about it.