With the effective use of analytics offering the opportunity for enhanced business efficiency, we asked two experts from Talend and Snowflake how companies can make the most of improving their decision-making processes.
Mark Fazackerley, Regional Vice President Australia and New Zealand, Talend
How can analytics provide enterprises with insights that will drive better decision-making?
The case for analytics and the value it can deliver has been well made for some time. Those organizations that take advantage of these tools will consistently outperform those that don’t.
Analytics can provide a window into the functioning of an organization which then becomes an essential diagnostic tool. This tool can reveal what has happened in the past, help predict what will happen in the future, and support better decision-making. Analytics are only as good as the data available- the old expression ‘Garbage In Garbage Out’ still holds true.
What sort of information can analytics provide to enterprises that would be especially useful?
Currently one of the most sought-after analytical views is a 360-degree view of customers. Being able to better understand customer behaviors allows a business to tailor its processes and offerings to improve the customer journey and experience.
This is particularly useful when a business is keen to reduce customer churn. If there are signs a customer is about to shift to a competitor, compelling offerings can be made to encourage them to stay.
Internally, analytics will also provide insights into how an organization can become more efficient and achieve more with less. It has long been known that better analytics-based reports can highlight areas for improvement and guide the actions of senior management, and in today’s economic environment an even more granular view is often required to examine cause and effect in business activities.
What is the best way for enterprises to gain actionable intelligence?
Actionable intelligence in the business world is not that much different from the way it is used in the military. It’s about delivering information that can guide activities and ensure they are delivering the most value to the organization.
Many organizations are achieving this by shifting all their data to a cloud-based platform and then using sophisticated analytics tools to derive intelligence from it.
What are the biggest barriers to enterprises making the most of their data?
Ushering in the much-anticipated Data Age is a long, slow process of learning to do business differently. While we see movements in the right direction, with more executives making data-based decisions, the results from our most recent Talend’s survey found 96% of APAC execs, face challenges effectively working with data to make decisions.
For decades, managing and using data for analysis was focused on the mechanics: the collecting, cleaning, storing and cataloging of as much data as possible, then figuring out how to use it later. Well, later is now, and this data deluge is drowning companies under a digital information landfill. Companies don’t know what data they have, where it is, or who is using it, and, critically, no way to measure their data health.
In the past, one of the biggest barriers has been trusting that the data being used is as up-to-date as possible. This is now being overcome through the use of cloud data stores and sophisticated tools.
Currently, one of the biggest barriers is organizational inertia which often stops it embracing new platforms and making the required changes to take full advantage of new technology. This needs to be overcome sooner rather than later.
How can companies break down data silos to deliver a greater degree of visibility?
This can be achieved by investing in a modern and fully functional data management platform. This platform can then ingest data from multiple existing silos and create a single view on which analytics tools can work.
Taking this approach will allow an organization to gain insights that previously would not have been possible, and to take advantage of rich data from other sources.
Is the ultimate aim of analytics to create an end-to-end view of a customer’s experience?
This is certainly one of the aims and assists with gaining insight into the entire customer journey. Other aims include achieving increasing operational efficiency, reducing risk and innovating faster. It also provides clearer views of what is taking place within the organization itself. This can go a long way to achieving more informed decisions and better business outcomes.
How far can analytics help enterprises solve business challenges?
Analytics is about providing a window into what has happened in the past. The key to solving business challenges is to extend this capability so it can provide predictions about what is likely to happen in the future.
There is growing attention being directed to the rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning tools that are on the market. When added to the overall analytics mix, these tools can help to further solve key business challenges. They certainly won’t remove the human dimension but rather support it. For these new tools, data health is of the utmost importance if they are to be used to support organizational decision-making processes.
Alan Eldridge, Vice President of Sales Engineering Asia Pacific and Japan, Snowflake
How can analytics provide enterprises with insights that will drive better decision-making?
There is a well-worn cliché that, in business, data is the new oil. This is because modern companies run on data. The insights that can be provided from this data by analytics tools are many and varied and will be determined by the type of organization and the activities in which it is engaged.
What sort of information can analytics provide to enterprises that would be especially useful?
Again, this will be determined by the particular organization involved. One of the most useful is likely to be insights into past events that can be used to guide future decisions. For example, a pizza chain can use analytics tools to analyze real-time data drawn from each outlet. This will allow changes in customer behavior to be closely monitored and enable the company to better plan everything from staff rosters to the volume of ingredients purchased.
What is the best way for enterprises to gain actionable intelligence?
The best way is to put in place the analytics tools that can deliver the most appropriate results for your particular circumstances. These insights could be anything from shifting trends in the market to the creation of a maintenance schedule for machinery based on past performance and known faults. Such insights can support proactive planning and more informed decision-making.
Actionable intelligence can also be gained by combining an organization’s data with additional data from other sources. This could be anything from weather and climate data to foot traffic in a shopping mall or known delays within a supply chain.
What are the biggest barriers to enterprises making the most of their data?
Within many organizations, their data is siloed and held in multiple different systems. Overcoming this barrier by creating a single data platform is an essential first step before the power of analytics can truly be put to work.
This is particularly important as more organizations shift from using data to create a ‘rear vision mirror’ view to a ‘real-time’ view of operations and have the ability to make predictions about future events. This trend is being supported by rapid development of new Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies.
How can companies break down data silos to deliver a greater degree of visibility?
This is a critical step as it will allow an organization to extract the maximum value from the data it has available. The best approach is to create a single, scalable data platform that can manage all data across the organization.
When selecting a platform, it is important to confirm that is has the capability to work with your chosen analytics tools. There are likely to be multiple groups of people across the organization querying the data and the platform must be able to support this.
As well as delivering a greater degree of visibility, taking such steps will improve data security and governance. It will be clear where data is stored at all times and those responsible can confirm that all regulatory and governance requirements are being met.
Is the ultimate aim of analytics to create an end-to-end view of a customer’s experience?
Again, this will be the case for some but not all organizations. The objective of analytics is to help an organization deliver on its mission, and if that involves directly serving customers, having an end-to-end view will be vital.
How far can analytics help enterprises solve business challenges?
The limits of what can be achieved through effective use of analytics is yet to be reached. If used correctly, they can solve a range of business challenges, both within an organization and externally in the way it views the world.
The importance of data will continue to increase. Those organizations that make the best use of it will have the most success when it comes to solving business challenges.
