Data analytics is the science of analyzing raw data in order to make conclusions about that information. Many of the techniques and processes of data analytics have been automated into mechanical processes and algorithms that work over raw data for human consumption.

Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data with the goal of discovering useful information, informing conclusions, and supporting decision-making.

Types of Data Analytics
Data analytics is broken down into four basic types.

1. 1. Descriptive Analytics what has happened over a given period of time. Have the number of views gone up? Are sales stronger this month than last?
2. 2. Diagnostic Analytics focuses more on why something happened. This involves more diverse data inputs and a bit of hypothesizing. Did the weather affect beer sales? Did that latest marketing campaign impact sales?
3. 3. Predictive Analytics moves to what is likely going to happen in the near term. What happened to sales the last time we had a hot summer? How many weather models predict a hot summer this year?
4. 4. Prescriptive Analytics suggests a course of action. If the likelihood of a hot summer is measured as an average of these five weather models is above 58%, we should add an evening shift to the brewery and rent an additional tank to increase output.

What does this mean for your business?

Data analytics is critical because it assists organisations with optimizing their performances. Implementing it into the business model means companies can reduce costs by identifying more efficient ways of doing business and by storing large amounts of data. Organisations can also use data analytics to make better business decisions and analyze customer trends and satisfaction, which can lead to new—and better—products and services.

At STRIDE, we take Data seriously! Making data driven business decisions is critical for business success and longevity in an ever-changing business and technological landscape. We build data analysis modules into our solutions as well as provide interactive dashboards to our clients allowing them the ability to make sense of the data and take key business decisions in the way forward.