Data Analytics - Pulse of Successful Business

“Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.”—Peter Sondergaard

Data is an integral part of any business, be it any industry segment, size, or geography. Of course, not all businesses understand and realize the importance of data. The key to business success lies in perceiving the true value of data, and the wonderful results that a well thought-of data analytical strategy can offer. Data analytics, as popularly known, is the mechanism by which organizations can be more data centric, offer a competitive edge, overcome market challenges, and garner detailed, focused analytics. Data analytics acts as a catalyst in shifting the business purview from a reactive decision process to a proactive one. Before we move onto understanding why data analytics is an indispensable ingredient to any enterprise's success, let us understand the basics of data analytics, and its importance.

What is Data Analytics?

“Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming and modelling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions and supporting decision-making."—Wikipedia

Irrespective of what industry segment you belong to or what business you are running, a detailed insight into your heaps of data is a must. It is a must so that you can understand your clients well enough to get their preferences, likes, dislikes, priorities, etc. With the help of data analytics, you can very well present and analyse all challenges, and help achieve organizational goals.

With technology and automation increasing their spread day after day, the shift to data-backed action is inevitable. Digital transformation is a must, and hence analyzing data is equally significant. Organizations are in a drive to extract the best out of the bulk of data, so that they can get the best of results for their business. Data, that earlier was mere information stacked up with the least meaning, now has a structured definition to more accurate and insightful information.

Why Data Analytics is Important for Business

Detailed Data Analytics Offers Enterprises a Better Competitive Edge

In a competitive world where retaining business is a tough task, data analytics plays an important role by offering an effective merger of real-time information with past inputs. This offers a detailed insight into the likes and dislikes of the customer, making it easy for the enterprise to maintain customer trust and loyalty.

Forecasting Trends and Novel Opportunities Becomes Easier

With the help of cutting-edge analytical techniques, enterprises can understand and analyse trends in a much-detailed manner. It helps businesses in making the most of historical information to retain and get new business. Data analytics, with its different set of techniques, encourages organizations to extract new opportunities based on the observations done. This helps business to expand and become stable.

Early Warning Signals Can Help Prevent Huge Losses

With data analytics, there could be many revelations that could help businesses identify early warning signals. With these, they could take necessary steps and stop further damage. Organizations can induce increased quality consciousness into business, offering an enriched product as an output.

Advanced Techniques Can Help Understand Clients Better

In the global revolution where AI, AR, VR, LBS, etc. are an everyday affair for businesses, data analytics would leverage the potential of these technologies to offer businesses an in-depth view into customer preferences. With the help of these modern-day technologies, enterprises can evaluate different parameters like price comparison, brand selection, specific client needs, demand schedules, etc.

A Detailed Analytical Process Can Offer Increased Business Growth

Better the data analytical process, higher is the business output. Revenue is bound to increase with higher business growth and good quality output. Enterprises are bound to grow manifold by implementing details analytics processes.

Change from BI to Data Analytics is Surely Beneficial

Jumping onto data analytics from simple business intelligence yields maximum usage of data powered by modernized efforts. It is sure to offer its users an edge over the rest, by helping them understand different perspectives, and delivering their own business transformation.

Helps Manage and Control Operational Costs and Issues

With data analytics, comes a set of helpful and detailed analytical outputs that can help enterprises cut down on unnecessary costs. It also helps increase consistency amongst business operations, and manages to move away all related risk factors, making the path smooth for the end users.

Parameters to Build the Right Data Analytics Strategy

In order to build the apt data analytical strategy, organizations need to fulfill the below mentioned parameters:

• Have you defined your goals clearly?
• Are you aware of the fundamental reason behind digital transformation?
• Have your clients built a well-defined software road-map?
• Have you imbibed the culture of working together in the teams?
• Are your data-sets and tools well-defined, and do they follow latest technologies like the Cloud?
• Will you implement new business models based on analytics as a service?
• Are you well-versed with all types of data and information that is prevailing in your organization?
• Do you have enough experience and expertise to make the most of all BI and Big Data tools and technologies?
• Do you have well-defined roles in your organization?
• Have you got all the data and metrics, right?
• Do you have all the systems in place?
• Have you developed a plan to put together data, tools, and skilled people to generate business value?

How Data Analytics is Crucial for Enterprise Business Success?

• Data analytics helps in dividing customer information into different segments based on different parameters like location, product use, age, requirements, etc.
• It helps getting customer preferences, and thereby increase sales with that customer
• It helps promote product development. By analyzing data, organizations can determine what works and what does not
• It increases agility, retains customers, attracts new ones, and expands customer portfolio
• It empowers revolution in the world of business and sales
• Data analytics is the main key to revolutionize the world in terms of increased sales and better performance
• It helps you increase business by understanding your data in detail, and thereby convert data analytics understandings into actionable items

Success Stories

There are nothing better than live success stories to prove the worth of data analytics in the live business world. Here are certain articles that showcase how data analytics has been proving its worth, world over:

Challenges of Data Analytics

Along with so many benefits and key features that come with data analytics, here are some key challenges that get tagged along, of course, with their relevant solutions:

• Recognizing the precise data-set to use with availability—internally or externally
• Safeguarding the right technology for analytics competences
• Establishing people, roles, and managing behavioral conflicts within the organization
• Using the insights correctly to convert your business
• Gathering data but not integrating it correctly
• Receiving real-time insights
• Searching for talented resources for data analytics teams

Data analytics knows no boundaries. As we get to know it better, we see business intelligence and analytics solutions going deeper into businesses with a whole lot of benefits by their side. It plays an instrumental role in garnering increased business, sales, agility and revenue. It has been interesting to observe the involvement of data analytics in our business world.