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Advanced Analytics 101: Beyond Business Intelligence

Written by Madhav Srinath | Oct 5, 2022 4:00:00 PM

The term "advanced analytics" has become more popular with businesses in recent years. And for good reason!

Advanced analytics goes beyond simple business intelligence (BI). It provides insights that can help organizations make better decisions and improve performance. But, you'll need the right business analytic tools and the right people. 

Learn more as we give you the rundown on advanced analytics and how to use it with BI for business success.

What is Business Intelligence?

BI is the process of analyzing data and providing insights to a business. First, you'll need to consider what your business needs. Then you can look for a BI solution that meets these requirements.

BI helps companies stay competitive by helping them understand their customers and competitors. It is also used to identify areas for improvement and identify new opportunities.

Implementing Business Intelligence

The process of implementing a BI solution must be easy to use and accessible to all employees. Many organizations have an existing BI ecosystem, which may include many solutions.

Working with many solutions can be costly and requires extensive technical knowledge. Furthermore, there can be compatibility issues between different solutions. To avoid these issues, organizations should choose a BI solution that is intuitive.

Benefits of Business Intelligence

BI can help companies understand their market in real time and make better decisions. Without this knowledge, companies can miss sales opportunities or lose customers.

Improves Customer Experience

By using BI, companies can customize and personalize their customer experiences. Good customer service encourages repeat purchases. With this information, organizations can create marketing strategies that target existing customers.

Boosts Efficiency and Revenue

BI helps companies make better business decisions. Using BI, they can boost their revenue by integrating data from different sources. It can also help businesses improve their processes and increase efficiency.

Gives Businesses a Competitive Edge

With BI, companies can make data-driven decisions to increase their competitive edge. They can measure how well their resources are being used and can optimize processes. Companies can also improve customer service and ensure their sales team is working.

Additionally, by centralizing data, upper management can access data from any device. This reduces administrative time and provides remote workers with the information they need.

What is Advanced Analytics?

Advanced analytics is a type of data analysis that goes beyond traditional methods. It uncovers hidden patterns and relationships, analyzes data, and predicts future trends. Businesses use it for various purposes. These purposes can include identifying customer behavior, preventing fraud, and improving marketing campaigns.

Advanced data analytics is often used in conjunction with big data, as it can help to make sense of large data sets. But, they can also be used with small data sets. The key is to have data that contains enough information to be useful for analysis.

Different Types of Advanced Analytics

There are many different types of advanced analytics, but they all have one thing in common: they need data. A lot of data. The more data you have, the more accurate your insights will be.

Descriptive Analytics

Descriptive analytics are simple statistical analyses based on data. They can be applied to a wide variety of business problems. For example, they are used to compare the performance of a business against industry standards and published data. These analyses start with the definition of metrics. Once completed, they're presented as a presentation in the desired format.

Descriptive analytics are most effective when they can present information in a readable format. Additionally, they rely on the data that an organization already has. This means that they can be implemented much faster.

Descriptive analytics is also more accurate and less complex than inferential analytics. Only basic math skills are needed. But, they do have their limitations.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics uses advanced algorithms to predict outcomes. Businesses use these algorithms to improve sales plans. For example, retailers offer faster shipping hoping to lessen the number of returns. They assume that customers will keep most of the items if they receive them faster. This avoids violating their predictive model if someone returns eight items.

The term predictive analytics refers to advanced statistical techniques and data mining. It helps predict future events. The techniques used include machine learning, statistical modeling, and data mining. They also make use of contextual data and attempt to fill in missing data using best guesses.

Diagnostic Analytics

Diagnostic analytics is different from descriptive analytics. It focuses on past events and looks for patterns and causes. These analytics usually involve using external datasets. They are then compared with the original data.

This approach does not always provide black-and-white results. Even so, it often allows for a deeper analysis to determine the cause of a problem or trend. They can be a powerful tool in many different fields, including healthcare, marketing research, and finance.

Prescriptive Analytics

Prescriptive analytics is a branch of data science. It deals with making predictions about future events.

This type of analytics is often used in business, in areas such as marketing, sales, operations, and human resources. It provides recommendations on what actions to take to achieve the desired outcome.

What is the Difference Between Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics?

BI and advanced analytics both rely on data to provide business insights. BI relies on the data business managers have access to. While advanced analytics uses algorithms to uncover patterns and predict future events.

Both approaches are integral parts of data science. They turn data into insights and inform decision-making for better business outcomes.

Data Mining

BI projects typically create highly formatted reports based on historical performance. Advanced analytics projects build machine-learning algorithms. These algorithms analyze hidden relationships and forecast future performance.

While both approaches focus on data mining, reporting plays a huge role. Businesses need to understand how BI tools work and how they can help them achieve their goals.

Data Analytics

Data analytics is a method of collecting, cleaning, transforming, and storing data. These processes are the foundation for predictive analytics.

BI uses data to determine what is working and what isn't. The goal is to improve the company's operations and increase profits. It typically uses metrics such as sales revenue, staff attendance, and profit margins to make decisions.

Patterns and Predictions

Both BI and advanced analytics use data from a variety of sources. The main difference is that BI is forward-looking. It helps companies identify patterns and predict future events.

Traditional BI focuses on the past and looks backward to understand the reasons behind things. Advanced analytics uses what-if analyses and predictive analysis.

How Do Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics Work Together?

Businesses use BI and advanced analytics together to improve productivity and specific work processes. Let's look at a few examples of how business analytics can benefit your organization.

BI and advanced analytics are often used interchangeably, but the terms are not mutually exclusive. They both have complementary roles and can help improve your performance.

They Identify Current Trends and Patterns

Businesses today are increasingly turning to BI and advanced analytics to identify trends and patterns in their data. By doing so, they can gain insights that help them make better decisions and improve their operations.

There are many different ways to use BI and advanced analytics. Some businesses use it to track customer behavior. Others use it to track their supply chain. Still, others use it to predict future trends. No matter how you use it, BI and advanced analytics can help you see your business in a whole new light.

They Leverage Big Data

In recent years, businesses have sought to use big data in their operations. Advancements in technology make it possible to break down large amounts of data. From there, businesses can draw advanced insights from it. Machine learning has increased the speed at which these types of data can be processed. Data visualization also makes data analysis easier.

Large retail companies and financial institutions have successfully used these techniques. It helps businesses to understand market trends and customer preferences. Overall, big data helps fuel better decision-making, model future outcomes, and improve BI. 

Business Intelligence and Advanced Analytics Strategies

What is the best way to use these two concepts to improve business decisions? The answer depends on the situation. Here are a few things to start with:

  •  • Identify goals
  •  • Set KPIs
  •  • Choose the software your team will use
  •  • Assign professionals well-versed in BI and advanced analytics
  •  • Gather and analyze data
  •  

Businesses that use both business intelligence and analytics have a competitive edge.

Transform Your Business

Advanced analytics is a powerful tool that goes beyond traditional BI. But, using BI and advanced analytics together gives you more insight into what is working and what isn't.

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