Most large businesses use data to make everyday decisions, but often only in a relatively narrow scope. With the emergence of big data forward-thinking companies have come to understand how the pervasive rather than piecemeal use of data can really drive corporate performance in so many areas.
Rather than sticking to established ways of using data – accountancy and sales metrics, for example – companies should reassess the data available to them and learn how the increasingly easy to use big data tools can drive profitability, customer satisfaction and the bottom line. We’ve summarised some of the top benefits of analytics to get you started.
Data Enables Business Agility
The business world is moving at a much faster pace and the risk of competitors and disrupters overtaking an established business is extremely high. Access to data analytics can help businesses be far more responsive to their changing environments.
Actively monitoring data via dashboards can help spot potential problems long before these become more serious. Comprehensive data analytics also gives corporations the opportunity to get insight into the future as emerging trends show up in today’s data.
Improved Supply Chains and Production
Data analytics can help large corporations run more efficient supply chains. By analysing which suppliers perform best under which circumstances a business can refine its procurement strategy to minimise expense and maximise productivity and customer satisfaction.
It can even do so in real-time, spotting impending supply chain glitches straight away. Production also benefit from an in-depth data analytics, particularly where IoT-driven production lines produce reams of live data that lead to real-time decision making.
Drive Disruption and Innovation
A surprising number of industries and sectors are seeing massive disruption that stems directly from big data. The biggest names include internet unicorns like Uber and Airbnb, but the ability to use data to create entirely new types of businesses are not relegated to headline-grabbing efforts.
Corporations should consider how and where data analytics can lead to insights that drive the creation of brand-new product and service lines. Doing so requires “blue-sky” thinking, but the results can be truly game changing for the companies that develop novel applications for data analytics.
Better Manage Corporate Finance and Risk
Though traditional accounting practice harness business data to enable financial managers to make business decisions, advanced data analytics can offer businesses far more. With advanced analytics corporations can operate much more efficiently, reducing the need for expensive financing and cash on hand that doesn’t earn any returns.
Data analytics can also reduce the risk of fraud and cybersecurity breaches by helping businesses spot everything from internal fraud through to external attempts to break corporate security.
Improve Advertising and Marketing
Instead of targeting customers with a blunt marketing approach, data analytics allows businesses to refine advertising and marketing strategies. It is not just marketing spend that can be more effective, corporations can also segment product and service lines to better match the needs of customers.
Indeed, data analytics can and should drive product development by analysing customer feedback and market studies to a much finer level. Data analytics can also give corporates a better understanding of their competitors, and the direction in which the wider market is moving.
In essence, analytics give decision makers more insight into a company’s performance, and a better understanding of its surrounding environment. To tap the most out of data analytics corporations should broaden their view of what is usable data, and then move to broaden the remit of analytics.
Of course, not all data is capable of providing insight, but by looking beyond the noise and finding the real signals businesses can mine insights that will provide an ongoing driving force for corporate performance.
