How to use analytics improve business operations and efficiency?

Analytics encompasses continuous and iterative exploration as well as investigation of the past business performance to gain insights into the business and help you strategize for the future. It focuses on developing new insights and understanding your business based on data and statistical methods. This type of analysis is used by businesses that are committed to data driven decision making. The data gained from these kinds of analytics is considered as a corporate asset and leveraged for competitive advantage.

Some of the examples for business analytics include:

• Data mining – which deals with exploring data to find new patterns and relationships that will aid in future business decisions.
• Statistical analysis and quantitative analysis is used to find reasons or explanation as to why a certain result occurred.
• Multivariate testing and A/B testing is used to experiment previous decisions.
• Data analysis is also used for forecasting future results. Predictive modeling and analytics are examples of this.

In order to select one method of data analytics, you will need to determine your business goal that requires these kinds of analysis. Analysis is usually performed against a smaller sample of data. There are a number of tools that can be used for analysis ranging from spreadsheets to complex data mining and predictive modeling applications. As you begin to analyze the data new patterns and relationships evolve and the process is re-iterated until the business goal is met.

Accurate analytics enables businesses to shorten the time between a business event and the response or decision. It helps improve the operating efficiency of businesses and helps them stay well prepared for any incidents. Well, analytics also helps businesses create strategic plans for the future based on pure statistics and numbers rather than predictions and assumptions.