The Power of DATA Analytics

By Jing Ertl-Yang

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues around the world, the healthcare sector is relying on data analytics to monitor the unfolding situation and help control the spread of the virus.

Data is playing a vital role in tackling the disease.

Meanwhile, CIOs and IT leaders from all sectors are investing heavily in data to accelerate digital transformation and innovation.  According to Statista, the global big data and business analytics market is predicted to grow to 274.3 billion U.S. dollars ( 253.63 billion Euro) by 2022.

Companies recognise the power of data analytics to unleash their business values, drive innovation and find new revenue opportunities.

The Benefits of Data Analytics


Improve Decision-Making

Companies make meaningful decisions quickly by using valuable insights extracted from data analytics. The traditional decision-making process is lengthy and time consuming. Leaders and their team depend on their intuition and experience to inform decisions which can often lead to less effective outcomes.

With the help of analytics, companies can easily recognize the problems and opportunities of business in many aspects, understand customer needs, and discover the key factors to growth business, accelerating the process to make a better decision.

Drive Innovation

Analytics enable companies to efficiently fuel discovery and innovation of products and processes. Advanced tools and techniques are able to combine diverse data sources to discover hidden patterns to drive innovation.

Many organizations use analytics to determine how to structure a high-performance team, to improve manufacturing production and to invent new products. Netflix has been deploying data analytics to understand consumer behaviour and identify audience needs as they create new TV shows.

Build a targeted Strategy and Campaign

Analytics enables organisations to build a targeted strategy and campaign, reducing costs and reaching their sales and marketing goals. For instance, a product team defines a product strategy designed for existing customers using the insights from analytics. Those insights also allow marketing executives to create advertising campaigns, such as ppc and google ads, on their targeted market.

Provide better Customer Experience

Companies can increase customer experience and build stronger customer relationships by diving into the insights of the customer world from data analytics. Deep understanding of customer preferences, interests, buying patterns and more empowers companies to provide personalized and customer-centric services.

Amazon, one of the best examples, gathers data and monitors customers’ purchasing behavior, their site visits on each page and then uses analytics to improve service and provide a custom shopping experience, thereby increasing their sales and marketing. Browning their website, you would be surprised to view products you might have in mind before you even search.

Mitigate Risks

Industry leaders identify risks and take precautionary measures to protect data and mitigate fraud through data analytics. As one of important tools, predictive analytics, a process of using historical data to predict future outcomes, can quickly detect risks and reduce fraud.

Banks use analytics to track the historical transactions to predict fraud and suspicious activity. It also helps businesses avoid hackers to steal data and provide the information of potential attackers.


Data and Analytics Strategy

CIOs and IT Directors need to design a successful data and analytics strategy to leverage analytics better, drive innovation and business growth. Firstly, it is imperative for them to fully understand business value and what goals their business wants to achieve and how data analytics can help. Furthermore, they should assess the current data and analytics issues and the technology they use, and take data governance, management and literacy into consideration.

Designing an overarching strategy, CIOs and IT Directors must communicate with their cross-functional team to ensure employees are aware of data analytics initiatives and data driven culture.


How to Select Vendors

To select a right vendor or multiple vendors to support analytics techniques, CIOs and CDOs need to review company value, size, data strategy and budget and then to evaluate vendors on their solutions and features, customer reviews and capacities. Among data analytics vendors are SAP, SAS, Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, TIBCO, Alteryx, Tableau and more.

Conclusion

CIOs and IT leaders can harness data analytics to drive innovation and gain competitive edge to ensure business growth. The power of data is undisputed and business opportunities are many, however leaders must act quickly to incorporate analytics into their digital transformation.

To help our community take full advantage of the potential of data, Ertl-Yang summits this year will feature engaging and relevant industry content on the topic. Learn how to transform your organisation, drive innovation and create new business opportunities through data. Hear from peer experts on the potential of data and how to implement analytics successfully into your IT strategy. Our summits also offer you the unique opportunity to meet best-in-class solution providers to help you evaluate what leading data vendors have to offer.