The year 2012 certainly increased the importance of business analytics…. what’s new about business analytics? Business Analytics is not new. To me, it’s simply statistics applied to relevant business data, providing solutions to business needs in a timely manner.

The actual techniques (decision trees (1950s), logistic regression (1970s), neural networks (1950s), etc) used in business analytics has been used for many years. So, why all the hype?

With the speed at which new information technologies are being introduced, information is becoming more readily available to users. So many business users are demanding information near real time if not real time.

Research has shown that organisations who apply business analytics in their organisations, gain competitive advantage over their competitors and are more likely to be the leaders in their industry.

One of the key reasons why there is so much hype, is because, business analytics has a strong mathematical/statistics component and not many people have these skills. There is a huge shortage of business analytics talent globally. With this, many organisations are looking at automating their business processes & analytics so that information & insights are derived faster and businesses are able to proactively make scientific business decisions and not make decisions on gut feel.

I think we are living in exciting times. Statistics was not so long ago the most dreaded subject on earth and now,…., many are hungry to learn more about what is statistics, shat is business intelligence, what is business analytics, what’s the difference?…Stay tuned

Business analytics is the new kid on the block. But what is business analytics????

In my opinion, business analytics is simply ‘statistics applied to business data, deriving insights in a timely manner so that business users can be proactive and make scientific decisions instead of making business decisions on pure gut feel.

With the speed at which information technology is changing, many people have access to data very easily, and in fact, many business users are demanding information and business insights in real time or almost real time. With the result that many hand held technologies that provide business insights in real time are becoming the order of the day.

Businesses are now being challenged to get up to speed in using Business Analytics. Some of the key challenges are:

1. Shortage of business analytics talent

2. Data Quality Issues

3. Centralised Database for all business users

4. Need for mobile devices to keep business users up to date with business insights

5. Identifying and implementing effective information systems that can automate  business processes and business analytics insights in real time to users

There are of course many more challenges, so what are organisations doing to get up to speed with the ‘nuts & bolts’ of business analytics? Do organisations know how to approach the whole business of getting on board with Business Analytics?