Business analytics – When to invest? I reached a juicy agreement, now what do I do? How do I know the best time to launch my product?

If these questions are hanging over your head —or you have found yourself in a situation, then you must know the business analytics; an innovative practice to realize more and better deals.

Through predictive data analysis, you will be able to visualize multiple scenarios, positive and negative, to create solutions and support strategic planning and its effective execution.

Digital transformation is incredible, but more extraordinary is what we can put to good use. On this occasion, you will learn a tool that will help you improve your management and with this, business competitiveness.

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Business analytics: what is it?

Business analytics or business analysis, for its translation into Spanish, is a process of collecting, processing, studying and classifying business data to obtain key business information and effectively reach your target audience.

The purpose of this technique is to reduce the risks of any organization by collecting useful data for the future with the use of tools such as statistical analysis, data mining and/or predictive models that contribute to decision making.

In this way, it is possible to determine which data set is desirable and the best way to take advantage of it to optimize problem solving and increase efficiency, revenue and productivity.

With safe business proposals, the chances of generating economic losses are reduced and profit margins increase.

In business analytics there are 3 types of business analysis:

Descriptive: It is based on the interpretation of historical information to determine patterns and trends.
Predictive: Takes descriptive data and uses it to forecast statistics about future outcomes.
Prescriptive: Here you start with trial and error, doing tests and other types of practices to identify the scenario that produces the best results.

With everything mentioned, it is evident that there are certain similarities with big data and business intelligence, however, they are very different. Find out why below!

Is there any difference with Big data and business intelligence?

Definitely! To have a detailed overview on the subject, we are going to study their difference individually with each one:

Business Analytics (BA) vs. Business Intelligence (BI)

The comparison with business intelligence or business intelligence, due to its translation into English, is very frequent. It is true, both analyze, visualize and collect data and can work together, there are some specific differences to take into account.

The BA focuses on predictive analysis through data mining, being able to anticipate developments and make changes necessary for business success.

On the other hand, BI focuses on descriptive analysis, it is responsible for providing a synthesis of the data history to indicate what is happening or happened.

In other words, it answers the “how” and “what” questions, so every business can make process changes and replicate what works.

The BI is oriented to verify what happened in the past, examining the historical reports of the company to understand its development, being able to access a set of prepared, stored and classified data. Everything is stored in a central server, where it is studied and conclusions drawn.

On the contrary, the BA has its sights set on the future, facilitating the creation of a vision based on the predictive model, influencing the planning and execution of new strategies and paths. It is not in charge of studying internal statistics such as business intelligence. It uses different sources, trends or macroeconomic indicators.

Business analytics vs Big Data

It makes no sense to talk about BA and BI without taking into account big data, which is based on the storage and processing of huge amounts of data, while the previous two examine said information and use it in order to optimize their decisions.

Looking at it from another perspective, without big data, there would be no business analytics or intelligence ; but it does not happen in vice versa.

According to professional profiles is another way of understanding why both methodologies work separately:

Business analytics: The work teams are normally made up of experts in marketing, business administration, economists, technicians and engineers.
Big data: Among the common profiles are engineers, mathematicians and statisticians.

Pretty clear, right?

For sure, how does it contribute to the growth of your business?

You already know what it is and its difference with other practices and technologies, however, how does all this contribute to the profitability of your business? As follows:

Data-driven decision making

Business analysis is an indispensable resource in making strategic decisions.

For example, if we run a restaurant, we could carry out an analysis to determine if the delivery options are the most suitable for the clients and, in this way, launch the strategic planning safely, after having analyzed the statistics and different possible situations.

Improve the level of income

Organizations that invest in BA —and with it in big data— see their profit level and rate increase due to the security with which operations are carried out.

Avoiding errors is synonymous with great savings in: raw materials, travel expenses, labor, among others. Organizations that rely on their own data collection and analysis are the ones that experience the greatest economic returns.

But why? Simple, they are capable of consolidating more and better business strategies aimed at satisfying the needs of a buyer person previously identified and studied through multiple business simulations.

Achieve better business operations

As business operations go hand in hand with economic benefits, companies use predictive analytics to prevent operational and maintenance issues before they escalate into a larger problem.

Indeed, preventive actions are a strategy that makes it possible to conclude a greater number of agreements and retain a greater number of customers with our brand.

With good experience, planning and competitiveness, it is only a matter of time before you can sign exquisite commercial operations.

Technology helps us to improve our business opportunities and the development of our company. However, applying the digital transformation is not an easy task, for this, we have prepared a material with the 8 best practices to help you in this arduous process.

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