Statistics have shown that the average person tends to over-estimate his or her capabilities when personally analyzing his/her abilities and this over estimation is in most cases transferred to our business dealings, which begs the need for relying on a more data driven analysis when taking business decisions while churning your self belief or intuition. Therefore the need to employ specialized tools and software to perform a thorough analysis should be encouraged.
What is Business analytics?
According to Harvard Business school, business analytics refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning. In lay mans terms, the above definition means the continuous process of applying technology and human efforts to the gathering of relevant information about your business practices to help you make an informed decision.
The data or information needed to conduct a thorough business analysis can be gotten in different ways which include:
- Conducting online research by visiting online libraries or state departments for trade to secure accurate data that would serve as the basis for your analysis and making an accurate decision.
- The use of data forms to collect accurate information directly from members of the public regarding. Your business practices. This data gives you direct insight on how the public views your business and how they interact with it.
- Visiting trade bureaus and going for business seminars relating to your organisation is also an affordable way of understanding business analytics
- The Use of software and business analytics tools also eliminates the possibility of making errors in your judgments.
Why Use Business Analytics for your Organisation
The rate of growth in the availability of data in today’s business society increases the need for gathering relevant data, analysing them and using it to make wise decisions that would help your business organisation achieve profitability. This is a growing trend employed by all large business organisations and some small business firms to understand their market niche therefore the danger of been left behind is real if one does not apply due diligence to his/her business.
Business analytics also helps smart organisations increase its opportunities for growth by providing them with detailed information on how to allocate funds and human resources to the needed departments to maximize capital and minimize risk. A company using business analytics right, would avoid been overwhelmed by the numerous data in circulation and making wrong business decisions when pursuing growth.
Implementing your Business Solution or analysis
Asking the question what should you or your business be doing? is a major step in both conducting a business analysis and implementing it and the answer to the above question comes in three phases which are; creating a business culture driven by information, empowering actions/decisions that align resources with the decision taken and continuously employing the use of business analytics as your organisation expands.
Once the areas needing implementation have been determined, do not rest on your oars but start small by making the necessary changes to the way you conduct business or manufacture your products with a view to establishing a long term process that would be profitable for the organisation. Every successful procedure should also be analyzed to know if more can be done to minimize capital while optimizing the implemented process.
The chosen business solution should have a wide effect on the different areas of your organisation. The solution should touch on the production or service phase, operational and transaction stage and how consumers react to your services. These stages should also be well documented for future analysis and to help in building a business analytics culture for your organisation.
It is never too late to start and if you are bogged down by the intricacies involved in the process of collecting and analyzing data, you can outsource the analytical process to a reputable firm at an affordable price to help you meet your goals.
About the Author:
This article is written by Purathini.A.