Businesses today are faced with two very stark realities—the world is hyper-competitive, and data drive it. Companies that have the best information make the fewest mistakes, which in turn helps them to stay ahead of the pack.
Today’s digital society, through the explosion of Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT), has produced a ton of information. The challenge is to make any sense of all this data. With all of that information, who can sort out what’s useful and what’s not?
That’s why business analytics is so essential for today’s industries, and business analysts are in such high demand. Today, we’re taking a look at popular business analytics applications, and some of the often-used cases.
Before launching into the meat of the matter, let’s take a moment to review. What’s the definition of business analytics?
Business analytics involves the collating, sorting, processing, and studying of business-related data using statistical models and iterative methodologies. The ultimate goal is to glean practical and actionable business insights to solve an organization’s problems—boosting efficiency, productivity, and revenue.
Note that there’s a difference between business analytics and business intelligence (BI), though they are related. Business intelligence falls within the discipline of business analytics, the process of gathering the needed data from all sources, and preparing it for use by business analysts. In short, BI tells you what’s going on, and business analytics tells you why it’s happening and when it will occur again.
So, a business analyst identifies a company’s weak areas, collects and sifts through data, creates a plan based on those findings, and helps to implement it.
Although business analytics is being leveraged in most commercial sectors and industries, the following applications are the most common.
As you can see, business analytics plays a valuable role in many different industries. You may also notice that some of the applications merge into each other, but that’s hardly surprising. By leveraging business analytics, multiple departments and teams can coordinate their efforts based on the information gathered and processed. It’s up to the business analyst to identify roadblocks and areas that need improvement, helping different departments to work together to achieve a common goal.
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Business analytics helps organizations run more efficiently and profitably. Here are six cases where business analytics proves its worth in the commercial sector.
Are you preparing to get certified in Business Analytics? Try answering this Business Analytics with Excel Practice Test and assess your preparedness.
Today’s fast-growing digital world is creating a high demand for business analysts. In the United States, for instance, new business analyst job openings are predicted to grow by 800% over 2019, exceeding 2.7 million by the end of 2020. Many professionals even use business analysis as a stepping stone to other rewarding careers in fields like data science.
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John Terra lives in Nashua, New Hampshire and has been writing freelance since 1986. Besides his volume of work in the gaming industry, he has written articles for Inc.Magazine and Computer Shopper, as well as software reviews for ZDNet. More recently, he has done extensive work as a professional blogger. His hobbies include running, gaming, and consuming craft beers. His refrigerator is Wi-Fi compliant.
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