The future of business in leveraging business analytics

Business analytics, the term which has garnered a lot of traction in the last decade or so. One of the prominent reasons for this popularity is associated with the digital revolution the world is going through. It is no longer limited to the IT world only as the business world has picked up troves of tools from this upsurge of digital involvement. Business Analytics is one of such tools which the business world readily uses to figure out the ‘What-Why-When-How’ of the business. Analytics has a broad range of application from customer relationship management to financial management, from marketing to understanding the supply-chain management, from human-resource management to pricing. The applications are immense and the number is getting higher with the advent of newer technologies. As a result of that, a lot of people are turning towards MBA in Business Analytics to gain more understanding about how the system works & make a place for themselves in the business world.

Business Analytics is a way to gain insights in to the consumer behavior, product performance and brand awareness of the business. It means analysts can analyze performance by parameters like product, process, customer segment or delivery channels. The goal of business analytics is to generate knowledge, understanding and learning or as it is termed in the data world, ‘insight’. Its basically a set of data-parameters which are analyzed and used to support evidence-based decision making and performance management. It involves scrutinizing the competencies, processes, technologies, applications and practices involved. Lets take a look at the following questions which business analytics can help in answering:

What?

As it happens in every business, the consumers & the market trend seem to dictate the performance of the product or a service. The ‘What’ part seeks information describing a situation, event or the status of an asset or product to check what has happened.

Why?

Finding the reason behind an event is as important as understanding its repercussion. This is called as getting ‘diagnostics’ in the business world. This question enables the understanding of the reasons why an observed event actually took place. Once an analyst possesses all the data regarding the ‘Why’ aspect of the business, it becomes a tad bit easy for them to take strategic decisions moving further.

When?

In business world, timing plays a very crucial role! It makes gaining the predictive insights a very important aspect for any business. The ‘When’ aspect of business analytics helps in understanding how to predict when a future event is likely to happen.

How?

Like doctors who tell their patients ways to get better from a disease or a complications through prescribed treatment, business analytics can be used as a prescription. Analytics can be very useful in predicting events in near future which can be helpful in creating the mechanism to influence business.

Courses like MBA in Marketing or Finance will teach one the tricks of the market but business analytics will train aspirants in understanding the market.