There is a fairly popular narrative that analytics does not have a great ROI. It can be countered with statistics which says that analytics implementation across India has saved and helped gather billions of dollars. But rather than fighting the argument with statistics and inviting more misleading figures I would like to present a different narrative – how business analytics can actually become the vanguard of your enterprise in the process of progression and become the first line of defense in case of an unstable situation.
What it stands for
There could hardly be a simpler nomenclature for what we know as business analytics. However, there is a surprisingly large amount of confusion that ensues after the mention of this. So, for all of us who are slow with nominal clues, business analytics merges the concepts of data analytics with the intricacies of business. If we list down pillars of business analytics it will be easier to perceive the building as a whole.
- Identifying an issue or a problem and setting an objective to tackle that problem.
- Accumulation of enterprise data and unstructured data from various sources.
- Looking at the data in light of the problem at hand.
- Striking out some possible solutions.
- Taking an action depending on the insights.
What it aims to do
The primary concern here is solving a problem and the secondary objective is definitely finding new problems the solutions to which can further broaden the path of progress.
We can safely state that profitability sits at the helm of the whole effort. But there are other objectives as well of a business analytics project.
For instance, a business analytics professional will have to function as a wire that connects the different parts of an organization. He or she will be expected to communicate with the software developer as comfortably as with the store manager. Thirdly, the person can have a greater impact if s/he can introduce a data driven culture in the enterprise. This is an essentiality for surviving the data revolution.
How can you prosper through it
If you are an enterprise owner, you can move on from instinctive risk taking to insightful decision making with the help of business analytics. You can see what is happening in your company through descriptive analysis. You can understand what might happen if a step is taken with the help of predictive analysis and you may even have a chance of knowing what the best course of action could be with prescriptive analysis. The last one, of course, involves a more advanced set up but you can achieve the first two with ease by integrating business analytics.
As an employee, your possibilities are practically boundless. You can start by undergoing business analytics training. After getting hold of the skills and the concepts you can become an asset for an ambitious enterprise owner. You can have a hold on the companies proceeding much stronger than anyone else’s.
It is an inevitable necessity to introduce business analytics in companies and therefore it is a great time for students and professionals to lean towards this discipline and take advantage of the situation.
