Using Data Analytics to Grow Your Business

Are you using your data to grow your business? According to Microsoft, two-thirds of business data isn't used, while the University of San Diego says only 45% of SMEs use data analytics. Data analytics is a powerful tool that helps you make better business decisions, expand markets, and win customers.

What Is Data Analytics?

Data analytics is the process of analyzing data to discover useful information and trends that aren't readily apparent. There are generally four levels of analytical maturity:

Descriptive analytics: Understanding what happened
Diagnostic analytics: Discovering reasons for past performance
Predictive analytics: Mining historical and current data to predict future trends
Prescriptive analytics: Using machine learning to guide informed, data-driven decisions

How Data Analytics Helps Business Grow

Data analytics gives you a new perspective and helps you discover underlying reasons for past, present, and future performance. It unlocks business potential and guides decision-making. Analyze and find meaning from structured financial, sales, and inventory data as well as from unstructured data like emails, sales reports, and call center transcriptions. Here are some ways to use data analytics in your business:

Marketing Campaigns, Lead Generation, and Customer Management

Use analytics to identify and score customer leads during marketing campaigns based on web traffic to your site, browsing history, and call center records. Other ways analytics can help is by identifying the regions and demographics that generate traffic to your website, and which products or services are most in-demand.

Financial Analytics

Financial departments apply data analytics to measure key performance indicators and predict revenue and financial performance. Unlike standard historical financial metrics, financial analytics help teams understand revenue streams, predict cash flow, and evaluate business credit applications. Internally, financial auditors use analytics to detect fraud and unauthorized financial activities.

Manufacturing and Operations

In manufacturing, companies collect data from smart machines and IoT devices to identify production bottlenecks and predict equipment maintenance requirements. Supply chain managers use predictive analytics to monitor supply chain performance and identify shipments that may be late.

Risk Management

Every business faces multiple risks. If not mitigated, these can severely impact the business, possibly leading to closure and bankruptcy. Risk management analytics allow you to identify and evaluate business risks and prepare contingency plans to manage business risk.

Getting Started With Data Analytics

To start your analytics journey, evaluate your current analytics. Ask questions such as what are we measuring? What's our level of analysis? Where's our greatest pain point?

Once you understand the challenges facing your organization, you can develop data analytics plans to address these needs. Easy-to-use data analytics tools include:

Excel: Basic statistical analysis
Microsoft Power Business Intelligence: Powerful BI capabilities
Google Analytics: Tracks and analyzes web traffic
Predictive Analytics: Predict trends using a predictive analytics platform
Machine Learning: Perform complex data analytics with user-friendly machine learning platforms

Embed Data Analytics To Help Your Business Grow

Embedding data analytics as a core business process is a key factor for successful business management and growth. You'll discover hidden insights and useful information that give you a competitive advantage. Many tools require no more than basic mathematical and computing skills, although you can hire a business analyst to get you started. Learn more about analytics tools for your business at TechCrack.