Data Analytics: An Outsider’s Take
Data. The Merriam-Websters dictionary defines the word as: factual information (such as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation. Data has emerged as the new buzz word in the recent years. Talking in business context, data are generated at every point in the business process. Let it be at the consumer level — metrics such as brand preference, demographic information etc., or let it be at senior management level, a huge amount of data is being generated every day. Data are as much important as they are abundant. Using data analysis, a myriad of business problems could be solved much more efficiently. These scenarios include: profitability, company growth, new product development, market penetration, risk management etc. Although I’m still naive in the field of analytics, in this article I have tried to provide an outsider’s view.
What does your client “need”?
Many businesses are unaware that they are generating a vast amount of data. This data is generated through day to day activities. Businesses usually have in place, processes like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Supply Chain Management (SCM) systems etc. Salesforce, for example, is a CRM tool implemented in many companies. Dassault systems (makers of Catia, a famous CAD software), Siemens are big players in ERP systems industry. Oracle, SAP etc are also big time players in SCM industry.
The CRM systems store customer information, leads and sales opportunities etc. These are different from social platforms in terms of growth opportunities. There are a lot of benefits of implementing a CRM system. Scalability (ability to expand or shrink your business) is prime among them. Another added benefit of having a CRM is readily available access to customer information. This is precious data, already available in tables, which can quickly be fed into analytics systems. Similar is the case for other systems which may, for example, provide data about trends in demand. Many clients don’t realise the potential of this resource which they have at their hands
There is, therefore, a need for analytics systems which will use such data and extract useful information out of it.
REVO AnalyticsTM, a new offering by ZS Associates
ZS Associates, the consulting group famous for their dominance in pharmaceutical consulting industry, has recently launched a new end to end analytics platform — REVO Analytics. This is introduced for the use in the Life Sciences industry.
According to their press release, REVO Analytics integrates data from sources such as Salesforce (CRM), patient-provider level, and from non conventional sources such as Twitter. It has been built on Amazon’s AWS platform and Spark computing(open source, big data oriented engine).
REVO Analytics has a front-end for business users and a back-end for data scientists and technologists to work upon.
A word on Clouds
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud system. It is the first cloud computing system to be offered. Cloud is basically a cluster of servers which can host — virtual machines, applications, databases etc. A cloud system has a service. A user’s application (a website, for example, which a user has paid for to host on that cloud) “ talks” to that service and the service allocates resources based on availability and requirement. In a cloud system, a number of applications (non techies read- websites) can reside on a single server if these applications are light weight. Heavier applications (in terms of traffic etc.) can be relocated to separate servers. The user remains oblivious to this and the cloud service does this magic. This way, a cloud gives scalability and high availability.
This was my understanding on requirement of data analytics in businesses which are oblivious to their potential or are struggling with their current systems.
About me: Currently pursuing an MBA from Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, I have about three years of experience, in working on infrastructure services. I have worked as a database admin, and also done some scripting on Linux for some of the biggest businesses as clients at Infosys Ltd. I’m also certified in ITIL Foundation Level. The field of analytics naturally stems out of database management systems, wherein we have access to immense amount of data. If analysed thoughtfully, these data reveal some sort of patterns, which is key for the businesses.