The Basics of Business Analytics

You may have heard the term “business analytics” thrown around before. This growing field can offer businesses of all sizes some substantial operational benefits in the form of optimized performance and improved decision making. Let’s review what business analytics are, and how you can embrace them to your advantage with technology.

Business Analytics: Using Data to Generate Insights

That’s all analytics really is: the process behind taking the data that you have acquired and using various methods to identify the most beneficial actions your company can take given the situation. If you’ve ever heard of business intelligence, analytics can be derived from the historical data that you can compile.

Combining these massive and sophisticated data sets, business analytics can predict the most likely answer to your business questions to help you shape your strategy.

Where This Data Can Come From

There are multiple sources for businesses to draw their analytics from. For instance:

• Data Aggregation—Or, in other words, collecting and filtering through data that you generate or collect through transactional records and data provided by your customers.
• Forecasting—Taking account of trends that have been noticed in the past and determining how likely they are to repeat to form expectations of the future. For instance, buying boots in November after three consecutive winters of record-breaking snowfall.
• Association and Sequence Identification—What offered products or services are commonly purchased together, or is there a certain order that clients and customers typically make transactions? Identifying this allows you to predict what your needs are and what your clients will likely demand next.

Putting this data to use can help you improve a variety of business aspects, including your productivity and profitability. 

SCW can help you install the technology that enables you to keep track of your business’ many moving parts. Reach out to us at (509) 534-1530 to learn more.