Data Analytics. Basically Very Simple.

Today I thought rather than showing how to identify high value patients I’d have a chat with you about the basic concepts of data and data analytics. Data Analytics is one of these dreadful things in that saying it out loud immediately creates a dissonance between you and whoever you are talking to (Interestingly the use of the word dissonance itself also has the same effect). It sounds complicated, it sounds like it will take longer to understand than it’s worth. And it sounds like something that might be useful if only someone else would do it for us.

But like so many things in modern life data analytics is really just a fancy term for getting a computer to accelerate or improve something we already do.

If I ask you if Liverpool will win a football match next weekend or if Claire will still be with her current boyfriend in six months you will use a rudimentary form of data analytics in your head to give me an answer (you’ll recall how many matches Liverpool have won thus far, or how many times you’ve gone out to meet “Claire’s new man” - data -  and then mentally crunch it to assign a probability of the same thing happening again.)

So the bad news for data haters: everything you do, every action or consequence is of course data. Data is simply the act of recording things in a format. Data analytics then is simply using data to reach a conclusion. Not only do you then use data analytics to make almost every decision in your life but it would be irrational not to use data analytics – you would be making decisions blindly.

Even more powerfully many of our choice phrases of regret come where we have clearly not only ignored data analytics, but actively gone against it (“I don’t know why I agreed to do this – I always have a bad time!”).

Where data analytics becomes Data Analytics (with a big D and a big A) is when computers get involved. If I asked you right now if Liverpool would win next weekend, that’s pretty easy. If I asked you if they would win by two clear goals it’s a bit more complicated. And if I asked you if they would concede five or more corners you’d probably give up. Unless you’re a huge football fan those things are probably too much to track and keep tabs on.

But a computer could store all of that data. It could store all of the data from every match that Liverpool have ever played. From every match all teams have ever played. And it could make a calculation in a fraction of a second and give you a much more informed answer.

And it might still be wrong. But if it bet on the number of corners every team would concede for the remainder of the season in every match in every league across Europe, its number of successful bets placed would blow yours into dust.  

So whatever line of business you are in, if you don’t have some form of data analytics, once you have more than a couple of dozen plates spinning at once you are really just guessing at what the best outcome or process is. You study some of the data, some of the time – some of the time when you’re not even aware you are doing it, and that is how you make decisions.

A Data Analytics product as a matter of course will take all the relevant data your business has generated, usually tens of thousands of lines of data and sift through it rationally. A good Data Analytics product should be able to sift through that data to present you with a series of insights and actions to take to improve the way your business works – saving time and money. And a really good Data Analytics product will be built by people who already understand your industry very well, who have worked with other businesses in your line of work and can show you using your own data both where you can make immediate improvements, and also help guide your strategic planning.

I hope this post has de mystified what data analytics could mean for your business and inspired you to find out a little more.

This blog is number two in a series of posts that are quietly gathering interest across linkedin. Very quietly in fact. Please hit a like or comment to inspire me. If I can get more than 20 likes I shall upload the true story of how data analytics are being used by football teams to succeed at penalty shoot outs.

If you have gotten this far and think data analytics could help your business please give me a call on 020 7193 8593. We may be able to help you, or if not I’ll be honest and tell you so.