Leveraging Business Analytics is key to driving success
"Data is the lifeblood of any organization" recently said Joe Bonanno, Managing Director, Global Head of Data, Digital, and Innovation for Securities Services at Citi.
If that's the case, then 'business analytics' is like the heartbeat that gives rhythm to this lifeblood.
It transforms data and numbers into actionable insights, helping you make smart decisions and drive your business forward.
This article explains business analytics and includes examples, challenges, and future opportunities.
In particular:
- What is Business Analytics
- Benefits and examples
- The Future of Business Analytics
What is Business Analytics?
Business analytics helps analyze and transform large amounts of business data into useful insights, understanding patterns, preferences, and trends.
It helps you and your business use data to predict the future, strategize well, and make data-driven decisions.
What about Data Analytics and Business Intelligence?
Let’s make it a bit more clear:
- Business intelligence is gathering and analyzing business data to make better business decisions.
- Business analytics is a subset of business intelligence. It examines data for business purposes and uses visualizations to display correlations between data and identify trends and patterns.
- Data analytics is more generic, and it refers to analyzing raw data to get helpful information. The term data analytics does not necessarily refer to business. Suppose you use the business data to investigate business performance. In that case, it becomes business analytics (if you don’t know them already, here are the four types of business analytics).
Benefits of Business Analytics
Business analytics is crucial for corporate success.
When polled, 71% of businesses said they planned to increase their investment in analytics throughout the past year.
Let’s see some benefits of business analytics in your organization:
- Improved Business Decisions: With data-driven actions, decision-making becomes less about gut feelings and more about tangible insights. Think about it: data-driven companies are 23 times more likely to outperform competitors in customer acquisition.
- Minimized Guesswork: By relying on data, you can significantly reduce the uncertainty that often accompanies business challenges.
- Clear Data Presentation: Numbers don't define data; it's a story waiting to be told. Business analytics allows you to present data more effectively, making it easier to get stakeholders on board.
- Internal Advantages: Beyond external competition, a data-led approach fosters innovation and efficiency internally. It helps optimize processes, reduce costs, and enhance employee experience. Leaders gain the agility to adapt quickly, ensuring businesses remain resilient in an ever-changing landscape.
The Future of Business Analytics tools
While traditional analytics and Business Intelligence offer insights, the future is 'Advanced Analytics.' This shift, powered by data science and machine learning, provides insight and foresight, enabling anyone in the business to gain insights and make decisions in the moment and not after weeks or months.
Moreover, Augmented Analytics employs AI to change how we interact with data. Non-technical people can grasp complex data by asking questions and getting answers, similar to chatting with a colleague.
Data democratization requires strong data governance, advanced infrastructure, and security. This is important for businesses that want to be more independent from business analysts and the data team when analyzing data without compromising security.
Conclusion
Business analytics for non-technical people involves understanding data and transforming it into real-time decisions.
So, as you rethink about the insights from this article, ask yourself:
“What do you need to leverage business analytics to its fullest potential in your business?”