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BUSINESS ANALYTICS
1.EXPLAIN BIG DATA AND THE PROCESS OF DATA MINING?

Data are the quantities, characters, or symbols on which operations are performed by a computer, which may
be stored and transmitted in the form of electrical signals and recorded on magnetic, optical, or mechanical
recording media.Big Data is also data but with a huge size. Big Data is a term used to describe a collection of
data that is huge in size and yet growing exponentially with time. It's a massive volume of both structured and
unstructured data that is so large it is difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques.
It treats ways to analyze, systematically extract information from, or otherwise deal with data sets that are too
large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data-processing application software.Big data often includes
data with sizes that exceed the capacity of traditional software to process within an acceptable time and
value.

Big data can be described by the following characteristics:

Volume
The quantity of generated and stored data. The size of the data determines the value and potential insight,
and whether it can be considered big data or not.
Variety
The type and nature of the data. This helps people who analyze it to effectively use the resulting insight. Big
data draws from text, images, audio, video; plus it completes missing pieces through data fusion.
Velocity
In this context, the speed at which the data is generated and processed to meet the demands and challenges
that lie in the path of growth and development. Big data is often available in real-time. Compared to small
data, big data are produced more continually. Two kinds of velocity related to big data are the frequency of
generation and the frequency of handling, recording, and publishing.[30]
Veracity
It is the extended definition for big data, which refers to the data quality and the data value.The data quality
of captured data can vary greatly, affecting the accurate analysis.
Data must be processed with advanced tools (analytics and algorithms) to reveal meaningful information.

Other important characteristics of Big Data are:

Exhaustive
Whether the entire system is captured or recorded or not.
Fine-grained and uniquely lexical
Respectively, the proportion of specific data of each element per element collected and if the element and its
characteristics are properly indexed or identified.
Relational
If the data collected contains commons fields that would enable a conjoining, or meta-analysis, of different
datasets.
Extensional
If new fields in each element of the data collected can be added or changed easily.
Scaleability
If the size of the data can expand rapidly.
Value
The utility that can be extracted from the data.
Variability
It refers to data whose value or other characteristics are shifting in relation to the context they are being
generated.

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Types Of Big Data

BigData' could be found in three forms:
 Structured
 Unstructured
 Semi-structured
Structured
Any data that can be stored, accessed and processed in the form of fixed format is termed as a 'structured'
data. Over the period of time, talent in computer science has achieved greater success in developing
techniques for working with such kind of data (where the format is well known in advance) and also deriving
value out of it. However, nowadays, we are foreseeing issues when a size of such data grows to a huge extent,
typical sizes are being in the rage of multiple zettabytes.
Unstructured
Any data with unknown form or the structure is classified as unstructured data. In addition to the size being
huge, un-structured data poses multiple challenges in terms of its processing for deriving value out of it. A
typical example of unstructured data is a heterogeneous data source containing a combination of simple text
files, images, videos etc. Now day organizations have wealth of data available with them but unfortunately,
they don't know how to derive value out of it since this data is in its raw form or unstructured format.
Semi-structured
Semi-structured data can contain both the forms of data. We can see semi-structured data as a structured in
form but it is actually not defined with e.g. a table definition in relational DBMS. Example of semi-structured
data is a data represented in an XML file.

Benefits of Big Data Processing

1.Businesses can utilize outside intelligence while taking decisions
2.Improved customer service
3.Early identification of risk to the product/services, if any
4.Better operational efficiency

Process of data mining

Data mining is looking for hidden, valid, and potentially useful patterns in huge data sets. Data Mining is all
about discovering unsuspected/ previously unknown relationships amongst the data.It is a multi-disciplinary
skill that uses machine learning, statistics, AI and database technology.Data mining is looking for hidden, valid,
and potentially useful patterns in huge data sets. Data Mining is all about discovering unsuspected/ previously
unknown relationships amongst the data. It is a multi-disciplinary skill that uses machine learning, statistics, AI
and database technology.Data mining is also called as Knowledge discovery, Knowledge extraction,
data/pattern analysis, information harvesting, etc.

Types of Data
Data mining can be performed on following types of data
 Relational databases
 Data warehouses
 Advanced DB and information repositories
 Object-oriented and object-relational databases
 Transactional and Spatial databases
 Heterogeneous and legacy databases
 Multimedia and streaming database

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 Text databases
 Text mining and Web mining
 Data Mining Implementation Process:

Steps in data mining

1.Business understanding:
In this phase, business and data-mining goals are established.
First, you need to understand business and client objectives. You need to define what your client wants (which
many times even they do not know themselves)
Take stock of the current data mining scenario. Factor in resources, assumption, constraints, and other
significant factors into your assessment.
Using business objectives and current scenario, define your data mining goals.
A good data mining plan is very detailed and should be developed to accomplish both business and data
mining goals.
2.Data understanding:
In this phase, sanity check on data is performed to check whether its appropriate for the data mining goals.
First, data is collected from multiple data sources available in the organization.These data sources may include
multiple databases, flat filer or data cubes. There are issues like object matching and schema integration
which can arise during Data Integration process. It is a quite complex and tricky process as data from various
sources unlikely to match easily.
3.Data preparation:
In this phase, data is made production ready.
The data preparation process consumes about 90% of the time of the project.
The data from different sources should be selected, cleaned, transformed, formatted, anonymized, and
constructed (if required). Data cleaning is a process to "clean" the data by smoothing noisy data and filling in
missing values.
4.Data transformation:
Data transformation operations would contribute toward the success of the mining process.
Smoothing: It helps to remove noise from the data.
Aggregation: Summary or aggregation operations are applied to the data. I.e., the weekly sales data is
aggregated to calculate the monthly and yearly total.
Generalization: In this step, Low-level data is replaced by higher-level concepts with the help of concept
hierarchies. For example, the city is replaced by the county.
Normalization: Normalization performed when the attribute data are scaled up o scaled down. Example: Data
should fall in the range -2.0 to 2.0 post-normalization.
Attribute construction: these attributes are constructed and included the given set of attributes helpful for
data mining.The result of this process is a final data set that can be used in modeling.
5.Modelling
In this phase, mathematical models are used to determine data patterns.
Based on the business objectives, suitable modeling techniques should be selected for the prepared
dataset.Create a scenario to test check the quality and validity of the model.Run the model on the prepared
dataset.Results should be assessed by all stakeholders to make sure that model can meet data mining
objectives.
6.Evaluation:
In this phase, patterns identified are evaluated against the business objectives.
Results generated by the data mining model should be evaluated against the business objectives.Gaining
business understanding is an iterative process. In fact, while understanding, new business requirements may
be raised because of data mining.A go or no-go decision is taken to move the model in the deployment phase.
Deployment:
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In the deployment phase, you ship your data mining discoveries to everyday business operations.
The knowledge or information discovered during data mining process should be made easy to understand for
non-technical stakeholders.A detailed deployment plan, for shipping, maintenance, and monitoring of data
mining discoveries is created.A final project report is created with lessons learned and key experiences during
the project. This helps to improve the organization's business policy.

Challenges of Implementation of Data mine:

 Skilled Experts are needed to formulate the data mining queries.
 Overfitting: Due to small size training database, a model may not fit future states.
 Data mining needs large databases which sometimes are difficult to manage
 Business practices may need to be modified to determine to use the information uncovered.
 If the data set is not diverse, data mining results may not be accurate.
 Integration information needed from heterogeneous databases and global information systems could
be complex

2.EXPLAIN BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND THE MAJOR FIELDS WHERE ANALYTICS IS USED.

Business analytics is a field that drives practical, data-driven changes in a business. It is a practical application
of statistical analysis that focuses on providing actionable recommendations. Analysts in this field focus on
how to apply the insights they derive from data. Their goal is to draw concrete conclusions about a business by
answering specific questions about why things happened, what will happen and what should be done.

Business analytics combines the fields of management, business and computer science. The business aspect
requires both a high-level understanding of the business as well as the practical limitations that exist. The
analytical part requires an understanding of data, statistics and computer science. This combination of fields
allows business analysts to bridge the gap between management and technology. Effective communication
and problem-solving are also key elements of business analytics to translate insights from data to information
that is easily communicated to executives.

Business analytics (BA) refers to the skills, technologies, practices for continuous iterative exploration and
investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning. Business analytics
focuses on developing new insights and understanding of business performance based on data and statistical
methods. In contrast, businessintelligence traditionally focuses on using a consistent set of metrics to both
measure past performance and guide business planning, which is also based on data and statistical methods.

Business analyticsmakes extensive use of analytical modeling and numerical analysis, including explanatory
and predictive modeling, and fact-based management to drive decisionmaking. It is therefore closely related
to management science. Analytics may be used as input for human decisions or may drive fully automated
decisions. Business intelligence is querying, reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), and "alerts."

In other words, querying, reporting, OLAP, it is alert tools can answer questions such as what happened, how
many, how often, where the problem is, and what actions are needed. Business analytics can answer
questions like why is this happening, what if these trends continue, what will happen next (predict), and what
is the best outcome that can happen (optimize).

Business intelligence is a related field that also uses data to help understand and inform a business. What is
the difference in goals of business analytics compared to business intelligence? Though both fields use data to
answer questions business intelligence aims to understand what has happened in an organization to get to
where you are. This includes measuring and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs.) Business analytics, on

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the other hand, aims to inform changes to a business through utilization of predictive models that provide
insight into the outcome of proposed changes.

Business analytics utilizes big data, statistical analysis, and data visualization to implement organization
changes. Predictive analytics is an important aspect of this work as it involves available data to create
statistical models. These models can be used to predict outcomes and inform decision making. By learning
from existing data, business analytics can make concrete recommendations to solve problems and improve
businesses.

Examples of Business Analytics

Business analytics has applications in a wide array of different businesses. Some companies are developing
innovative ways to use big data in order to improve their customer’s experience and maximize profits. Here is
a real life example of business analytics:

Fast-food companies have begun to implement business analytics to streamline their restaurants. No one
wants to have a slow experience in a fast-food drive-thru. By monitoring how busy the drive-thru is these
businesses can increase efficiency during peak hours. When the line gets long, the digital order boards change.
They begin to highlight items that can be prepared quickly. This leads to more simple orders that can be
completed quickly. When the lines are short, slower items with higher margins are featured. In this way, the
store can respond to real-time needs to improve efficiency.

Other types of business analytics applications do more than just respond to the current situation. These
techniques help businesses predict which customers are less likely to return. They can then target advertising
and promotions to these customers to improve retention. Here are some examples of predictive analytics in
business:

Casinos have embraced business analytics to improve their profits and keep customers coming back. Casinos
have a complicated relationship with their customers. Though the house wins most of the time, players need
to win enough to enjoy themselves and keep playing. Otherwise, players would quickly lose interest and stop
coming back. By tracking players spending, casinos can learn which customers they make the most money
from. They can offer greater incentives to these big spenders to keep them coming back. The collected data
also helps these resorts understand which amenities are most popular.

Fields of business analytics

In today’s world, the amount of data made available is on the increase with many businesses and companies
being able to compile information across their respective industries.

Of course, Data Analytics gives them an advantage over their competitors to identify which areas in their
services or products they need to improve on, where sales might have increased or decreased and where
there might be a loophole in the market.

This has shown how important the use of data analytics is across several organizations. A researcher once
claimed that advanced analytics tools have helped get deeper insights and discovery which will challenge
assumptions made in business. Also, business analysts and users get more information and significant
potential in creating business value and competitive advantage.

One very important benefit is that the use of data helps companies save so much money, develop better
marketing strategies, improve the efficiency in procurement, support the growth of business and differentiate
themselves from other competitors in the industry. There are several other areas where the application of
data is known to be useful apart from companies alone.

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Areas where Business Analytics Applications have been employed:

1.) Policing/Security

Several cities all over the world have employed predictive analysis in predicting areas that would likely witness
a surge in crime with the use of geographical data and historical data. This has seemed to work in major cities
such as Chicago, London, Los Angeles, etc. Although, it is not possible to make arrests for every crime
committed but the availability of data has made it possible to have police officers within such areas at a
certain time of the day which has led to a drop in crime rate.

2.) Transportation

A few years back at the London Olympics, there was a need for handling over 18 million journeys made by fans
in the city of London and fortunately, it were sorted out.

How was this feat achieved? The TFL and train operators made use of data analytics to ensure the large
numbers of journeys went smoothly. They were able to input data from events that took place and forecasted
a number of persons that were going to travel; transport was being run efficiently and effectively so that
athletes and spectators can be transported to and from the respective stadiums.

3.) Fraud and Risk Detection

This has been known as one of the initial applications of data science which was extracted from the discipline
of Finance. So many organizations had very bad experiences with debt and were so fed up with it. Since they
already had data that was collected during the time their customers applied for loans, they applied data
science which eventually rescued them from the losses they had incurred. This led to banks learning to divide
and conquer data from their customers’ profiles, recent expenditure and other significant information that
were made available to them. This made it easy for them to analyze and infer if there was any probability of
customers defaulting.

4.) Manage Risk

In the insurance industry, risk management is the major focus. What most people aren’t aware of is that when
insuring a person, the risk involved is not obtained based on mere information but data that has been
analyzed statistically before a decision is made. Data analytics gives insurance companies information on
claims data, actuarial data and risk data covering all important decision that the company needs to take.
Evaluation is done by an underwriter before an individual insured then the appropriate insurance is set.

These days, analytical software is used for detecting the various forms of fraudulent claims. Risky claims are
detected by red flag indicators which can be examined. It is very essential to bring such claims to the attention
of administrators, due to the manner at which automation is improving claims processing efficiency.

5.) Delivery Logistics

Well, data science and analytics have no limited applications. There are several logistic companies working all
over the world such as UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc. that make use of data for improving their efficiency in operations.
From data analytics applications, these companies have found the most suitable routes for shipping, the best
delivery time, most suitable means of transport to select so as to gain cost efficiency and many others. Also,
data generated by these companies through the use of GPS gives them enough opportunities to take
advantage of data analytics and data science.

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6.) Web Provision

There is this general belief that “Smart Cities” have fast internet speed provided either by their government or
companies present there, therefore declaring them smart. Well, just because people can access Facebook or
YouTube at the speed of lightning does not necessarily make a city smart.

Although there may be the presence of fast internet but this is just one thing; it needs to be present in the
appropriate place and accessed by the right people as well. The key component of this is being able to shift
bandwidth at the right time and location. This can only be achieved by the use of data.

Bottom of Form

The main assumption is that commercial and financial areas should have the highest bandwidth during
weekdays while residential areas should get such on weekends. The real truth is that this situation is more
complex than it looks and this can only be solved by data analytics application. For example, if a particular
community wants to get the attention of web development companies and high-tech industries and make
them establish there, a higher bandwidth would be required; only data analytics could get this done
effectively.

7.) Proper Spending

Another issue with Smart Cities is the large amount of money spent on little work. Small changes or landmark
remodeling which one could dismiss as unnecessary projects consume so much money. Data analytics
applications would target where taxpayers’ money would have a major impact on and the kind of work that
would be adequate for it. The targeting of where this money should be spent would lead to the entire city’s
infrastructure getting a facelift with a reduction of excess money spent.

8.) Customer Interactions

This is another one of the applications of data analytics in insurance. Insurers can determine a lot about their
services by conducting regular customer surveys mainly after interacting with claim handlers. They could use
this to know which of their services are good and the ones that would need improvement. Various
demographics may desire diverse methods of communication like in person interactions, websites, phone or
just email. Taking the analysis of customer demographics with feedback can help insurers improve on
customer experience depending on customer behavior and proven insights.

A study recently carried out showed that a lack of investment in technology was the cause customer
dissatisfaction of the present generation of insurance customers because they prefer using mobile and online
channels, social media and other recent mediums to interact with their agents. However, the older generation
still prefers the use of the telephone. To improve the overall experience of customers, it is best for insurance
companies to provide a wide range of communication methods for their customers.

9.) City Planning

One big mistake being made in many places is that analytics is not considered when pursuing city planning. As
a matter of fact, web traffic and marketing are still being used instead of the creation of spaces and buildings.
This really causes a lot of issues to power over data due to its influence on things like building zoning and
amenity creation. Models that are built will maximize the accessibility of specific areas or services while the
risk of overloading significant elements of the infrastructure in the city is minimized. This implies that it
creates efficiency.We usually see buildings that are built on spots that look suitable but actually have a
negative effect on other places. This is because such issues were not considered during the period of planning.

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Data analytics applications, as well as modeling, would make it easy to mark the outcome of erecting a
structure on any spot.

10.) Healthcare

One challenge most hospitals face is coping with cost pressures in treating as many patients as possible,
considering the quality of healthcare’s improvement. Machine and instrument data use has risen drastically so
as to optimize and track treatment, patient flow as well as the use of equipment in hospitals. There is an
estimation that a 1% efficiency gain will be achieved and would result to over $63 billion in worldwide health
care services.

11.) Travel

Data analytics applications help in the optimization of traveler’s buying experience via social media and
mobile/weblog data analysis. This is because customers’ preferences and desires can be obtained from this,
therefore, making companies sell products from the correlation of the current sales to recent browse-to-buy
conversion through customized offers and packages. Data analytics applications can also deliver personalized
travel recommendations depending on the outcome from social media data.

12.) Energy Management

We are in an era where firms make apply data analytics to energy management and cover areas like energy
optimization, smart-grid management, distribution of energy and building automation for utility companies.
Data analytics application here focuses mainly on monitoring and controlling of dispatch crew, network
devices and make sure service outages are properly managed. Utilities get the ability to integrate as much as
millions of data points within the performance of the network which allows the engineers make use of the
analytics in monitoring the network.

13.) Internet/Web Search

When one mentions the word ‘search’, the first thing that comes to the mind is ‘Google’. In fact, Google to
some point can be used in place of ‘search on the internet’ by saying ‘Google it’. Well, apart from Google,
there are several other search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, Duckduckgo, AOL, Ask, etc. Each of these search
engines is as a result of data science applications because they use algorithms to deliver the best results for
any search query directed at them in just a split second. In respect to this, Google is known to process over 20
petabytes of data daily. Of course, without analytics and data science, this feat wouldn’t have been possible.

14.) Digital Advertisement

Apart from web search, there is another area where data analytics and data science serves a very important
purpose – digital advertisements. From the banners displayed on several websites to the digital billboards
seen in the big cities; all are controlled by data algorithms.

This shows why digital adverts get more CTR than the conventional way of advertisements. Targets depend
solely on the past behavior of users.

The importance of data analytics applications cannot be overemphasized because it is used in almost all areas
of life today. We can see that having data is very important before making certain decisions so as to avoid
unnecessary issues.

Also, handling valuable data inefficiently could lead to several problems like different departments in an
organization not understanding how to make use of it which would lead to data not used to its full potential or
serving any purpose.

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However, data has become more available and accessible to more people therefore no longer at the disposal
of data scientists and analysts. Almost everybody within an organization can make use of data for the increase
of productivity and make very important decisions. Of course, proper use of data would have a positive impact
on business and even the society in general.

3. BUSINESS ANALYTICS DOMAIN

As shown in Figure 1-1, the domain of business analytics covers four major areas of study: databases and data
warehouses, descriptive analytics, predictive analytics, and prescriptive analytics. Whereas data structures are
used to effectively store and efficiently retrieve information, descriptive analytics can be used to report the
past. Whereas predictive analytics uses past data to create models that predict the future, prescriptive
analytics utilizes optimization, heuristics, or simulation models that can specify optimal solutions and
prescribe the best courses of action.

4.TYPES OF BUSINESS ANALYTICS

The four types of analytics are usually implemented in stages and no one type of analytics is said to be better
than the other. They are interrelated and each of these offers a different insight. With data being important to
so many diverse sectors- from manufacturing to energy grids, most of the companies rely on one or all of
these types of analytics. With the right choice of analytical techniques, big data can deliver richer insights for
the companies.

1)Descriptive Analytics: Describing or summarising the existing data using existing business intelligence tools
to better understand what is going on or what has happened.

2) Diagnostic Analytics: Focus on past performance to determine what happened and why. The result of the
analysis is often an analytic dashboard.

3) Predictive Analytics: Emphasizes on predicting the possible outcome using statistical models and machine
learning techniques.

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4) Prescriptive Analytics: It is a type of predictive analytics that is used

used to recommend one or more course of
action on analyzing the data.

1. Descriptive Analytics

This can be termed as the simplest form of analytics. The mighty size of big data is beyond human
comprehension and the first stage hence involves crunching the data data into understandable chunks. The
purpose of this analytics type is just to summarise the findings and understand what is going on.

It is said that 80% of business analytics mainly involves descriptions based on aggregations of past
performance. It is an n important step to make raw data understandable to investors, shareholders and
managers. This way it gets easy to identify and address the areas of strengths and weaknesses such that it can
help in strategizing.

The two main techniques involved are data aggregation and data mining stating that this method is purely
used for understanding the underlying behavior and not to make any estimations. By mining historical data,
companies can analyze the consumer behaviors and engagements with their businesses thathat could be helpful
in targeted marketing, service improvement, etc. The tools used in this phase are MS Excel, MATLAB, SPSS,

STATA, etc.

2. Diagnostic Analytics

Diagnostic analytics is used to determine why something happened in the past. It is characteriz
characterized by
techniques such as drill-down,
down, data discovery, data mining and correlations. Diagnostic analytics takes a
deeper look at data to understand the root causes of the events. It is helpful in determining what factors and
events contributed to the outcome.. It mostly uses probabilities, likelihoods, and the distribution of outcomes
for the analysis.This type of analytics has a limited ability to give actionable insights. It just provides an
understanding of causal relationships and sequences while looking backward.
b

A few techniques that uses diagnostic analytics include attribute importance, principle components
analysis, sensitivity analysis, and conjoint analysis. Training algorithms for classification and regression also fall
in this type of analytics.

3. Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics is used to predict future outcomes. However, it is important to note that it cannot
predict if an event will occur in the future; it merely forecasts what are the probabilities of the occurrence of
the event. A predictive model builds on the preliminary descriptive analytics stage to derive the possibility of
the outcomes.

The prediction of future data relies on the existing data as it cannot be obtained otherwise. If the model
is properly tuned, it can be used to support complex forecasts in sales and marketing. It goes a step ahead of
the standard BI in giving accurate predictions.

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4. Prescriptive Analytics

The basis of this analytics is predictive analytics but it goes beyond the three mentioned above to suggest
the future solutions. It can suggest all favorable outcomes according to a specified course of action and also
suggest various course of actions to get to a particular outcome. Hence, it uses a strong feedback system that
constantly learns and updates the relationship between the action and the outcome.

The computations include optimisation of some functions that are related to the desired outcome. For
example, while calling for a cab online, the application uses GPS to connect you to the correct driver from
among a number of drivers found nearby. Hence, it optimises the distance for faster arrival time.
Recommendation engines also use prescriptive analytics.

The other approach includes simulation where all the key performance areas are combined to design the
correct solutions. It makes sure whether the key performance metrics are included in the solution. The
optimisation model will further work on the impact of the previously made forecasts. Because of its power to
suggest favorable solutions, prescriptive analytics is the final frontier of advanced analytics or data science, in
today’s term.

5.DATABASE AND WAREHOUSING

What is Database?

A database is a collection of related data which represents some elements of the real world. It is designed to
be built and populated with data for a specific task. It is also a building block of your data solution.

Why use a Database?

 It offers the security of data and its access

 A database offers a variety of techniques to store and retrieve data.
 Database act as an efficient handler to balance the requirement of multiple applications using the
same data
 A DBMS offers integrity constraints to get a high level of protection to prevent access to prohibited
data.
 A database allows you to access concurrent data in such away that only a single user can access the
same data at a time.

Characteristics of Database

 Offers security and removes redundancy

 Allow multiple view soft the data
 Database system follows the ACID compliance (Atomicity,Consistency,Isolation,andDurability).
 Allows insulation between programs and data
 Sharing of data and multiuser transaction processing
 Relational Database support multi-user environment

Applications of Database

Banking : Use in the banking sector for customer information ,account-related activities payments ,deposits
,loans ,credit cards, etc.

Airlines: Use for reservations and schedule information.

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What is a Data Warehouse?

A dataware house is an information system which stores historical and commutative data from single or
multiple sources. It is designed to analyze ,report ,integrate transaction data from different sources.

Data Warehouse eases the analysis and reporting process of an organization .It is also a single version of truth
for the organization for decision making and forecasting process.

Why Use Data Warehouse?

 Dataware house helps business users to access critical data from some sources all in one place.
 It provides consistent information on various cross-functional activities
 Helps you to integrate many sources of data to reduce stress on the production system.
 Dataware house helps you to reduce TAT(total turn around time)for analysis and reporting.
 Dataware house helps users to access critical data from different sources in a single place
so,it’saves user's time of retrieving data information from multiple sources.You can also access
data from the cloud easily.
 Data warehouse allows you to stores a large amount of historical data to analyze different periods
and trends to make future predictions.
 Enhances the value of operational business applications and customer relationship management
systems
 Separates analytics processing from transactional databases,improving the performance of both
systems
 Stakeholders and users maybe over estimating the quality of data in the source systems. Data
warehouse provides more accurate reports.

Characteristics of Data Warehouse

 A data warehouse is subject oriented as it offers information related to theme instead of

companies' ongoing operations.
 The data also needs to be stored in the Data warehouse in common and unanimously acceptable
manner.
 The time horizon for the data warehouse is relatively extensive compared with other operational
systems.
 A data warehouse is non-volatile which means the previous data is not erased when new
information is entered in it.

.Applications of Data Warehousing

Airline :It is used for airline system management operations like crew assignment,analyzes of route,frequent
flyer program discount schemes for passenger,etc.

Banking: It is used in the banking sector to manage the resources available on the desk effectively

ETL(Extract, Transform, and Load)Process

ETL is defined as a process that extracts the data from different RDBMS source systems, then transforms the
data(like applying calculations, concatenations, etc.) and finally loads the data into the Data Warehouse
system.ETL full-form is Extract,Transform and Load.

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ETL Process in Data Warehouses

ETL is a 3-step process

Step1)Extraction

In this step,data is extracted from the source system into the staging area.Transformations if any are done in
staging area so that performance of source system in not degraded. Also,if corrupted data is copied directly
from the source into Data warehouse database,rollback will be a challenge.Staging are a gives an opportunity
to validate extracted data before it moves into the Data warehouse.

Three Data Extraction methods:

 Full Extraction
 Partial Extraction-without update notification.
 Partial Extraction-with update notification

Step2)Transformation

Data extracted from source server is raw and not usable in its original form. Therefore it needs to be cleansed,
mapped and transformed. Infact, this is the key step where ETL process adds value and changes data such
that insightful BI reports can be generated.

In this step, you apply a setoff functions on extracted data.Data that does not require any transformation is
called as direct move or pass through data.

Step3)Loading

Loading data into the target data warehouse database is the last step of the ETL process.In a typical Data
warehouse, huge volume of data needs to be loaded in a relatively shortperiod(nights).Hence,load process
should be optimized for performance.

In case of load failure,recover mechanisms should be configured to restart from the point of failure without
data integrity loss. Data Warehouse admins need to monitor,resume,cancel loads as per prevailing server
performance.

Types of Loading:

 Initial Load—populating all the Data Warehouse tables

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 Incremental Load—applying ongoing changes as when needed periodically.

 Full Refresh—erasing the contents of one or more tables and reloading with fresh data.

ETL tools

There are many Data Warehousing tools are available in the market. Here, are some most prominent one:

 MarkLogic:
 Oracle
 AmazonRedShift


6.EXPLAIN DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS AND THE TOOLS & TECHNIQUES USED FOR DESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS?

What Is Descriptive Analytics?

Descriptive analytics is the interpretation of historical data to better understand changes that have occurred in
a business. Descriptive analytics describes the use of a range of historic data to draw comparisons. Most
commonly reported financial metrics are a product of descriptive analytics—for example, year-over-year
pricing changes, month-over-month sales growth, the number of users, or the total revenue per subscriber.
These measures all describe what has occurred in a business during a set period.

Understanding Descriptive Analytics

Descriptive analytics takes raw data and parses that data to draw conclusions that are useful and
understandable by managers, investors, and other stakeholders. A report showing sales of $1 million may
sound impressive, but it lacks context. If that figure represents a 20% month-over-month decline, it is a
concern. If it is a 40% year-over-year increase, then it suggests something is going right with the sales strategy.
However, the larger context including targeted growth is required to obtain an informed view of the
company's sales performance.

Descriptive analytics uses a full range of data to give an accurate picture of what has happened in a business
and how that differs from other comparable periods. These performance metrics can be used to flag areas of
strength and weakness to inform management strategies.

Descriptive analytics is an important component of performance analysis so that managers can make
informed strategic business decisions based on historic data.

Descriptive analytics is one of the most basic pieces of business intelligence a company will use. Although
descriptive analytics can be industry specific—such as the seasonal variation in shipment completion times—
analytics use broadly accepted measures common throughout the finance industry.

Return on invested capital (ROIC) is a descriptive analytic created by taking three data points—net income,
dividends, and total capital—and turning those data points into an easy-to-understand percentage that can be
used to compare one company’s performance to others. Generally speaking, the larger and more complex a
company is, the more descriptive analytics it will use to measure its performance.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 Descriptive analytics is the process of parsing historical data to better understand the changes that
have occurred in a business.
 Using a range of historic data and benchmarking, decision makers obtain a holistic view of
performance and trends on which to base business strategy.

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 Descriptive analytics can help to identify the areas of strength and weakness in an organization.

Special Considerations

Descriptive analytics provides important information in an easy-to-grasp format. There will always be a need
for descriptive analytics. However, more effort is going towards newer fields of analytics such as predictive
and prescriptive analytics.

These types of analytics use descriptive analytics and integrate additional data from diverse sources to model
likely outcomes in the near term. These forward-looking analytics go beyond informing to decision-making.
These types of analytics can also suggest courses of action that can maximize positive outcomes and minimize
negative ones.

Fast Fact

Descriptive analytics provides the "What happened?" information regarding a company's operations, whole
diagnostic analytics provides the "Why did it happen?" information, and predictive analytics provides
information as to "What could happen in the future?"

That said, we are not quite yet at the point where benevolent and prescient computers will helm all major
corporations. The majority of decisions in offices and boardrooms worldwide are made by people using the
same types of descriptive analytics used 10, 20, and 30 years ago, such as whether sales were up or down
compared to last month, is the product getting to market on time, and does the company have sufficient
supply based on last month’s numbers.

Examples of descriptive analytics

Many LMS platforms and learning systems offer descriptive analytical reporting with the aim of help
businesses and institutions measure learner performance to ensure that training goals and targets are met.

The findings from descriptive analytics can quickly identify areas that require improvement - whether that be
improving learner engagement or the effectiveness of course delivery.

Here are some examples of how descriptive analytics is being used in the field of learning analytics:

 Tracking course enrollments, course compliance rates,

 Recording which learning resources are accessed and how often
 Summarizing the number of times a learner posts in a discussion board
 Tracking assignment and assessment grades
 Comparing pre-test and post-test assessments
 Analyzing course completion rates by learner or by course
 Collating course survey results
 Identifying length of time that learners took to complete a course
 What are the advantages of descriptive analytics?
 When learners engage in online learning, they leave a digital trace behind with every interaction
they have in the learning environment.

This means that descriptive analytics in online learning can gain insight into behaviours and performance
indicators that would otherwise not be known.

common applications of Descriptive Analytics:

Summarizing past events such as regional sales, customer attrition, or success of marketing campaigns.

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Tabulation of social metrics such as Facebook likes, Tweets, or followers.

Reporting of general trends like hot travel destinations or news trends.

According to Four Types of Big Data Analytics and Examples of Their Use, as soon as the “volume, velocity, and
variety” of Big Data invades the limited business data silos, the game changes. Now, powered by the hidden
intelligence of massive amounts of market data, Descriptive Analytics takes new meaning. Whenever Big Data
intervenes, vanilla-form Descriptive Analytics is combined with the extensive capabilities of Prescriptive and
Predictive Analytics to deliver highly-focused insights into business issues and accurate future predictions
based on past data patterns. Descriptive Analytics mines and prepares the data for use by Predictive or
Prescriptive Analytics. Big Data lends a wide context to the “nuggets of information” for telling the whole
story. Also view this presentation from Information Builders on four popular types of Business Analytics.

According to a recent Forbes study titled EY-Forbes-Insights: Data and Analytics Impact Index “people and
culture” can influence the intelligence gathered from Business Analytics. This study conducted jointly by
Forbes Insights and EY interviewed global executives and concluded that:

 Every modern business needs to build its Data Analytics framework, where the latest data
technologies like Big Data play a crucial role.
 Data and technology should be made available at every corner of an enterprise to develop and
nurture a widespread data-driven culture.
 If data and analytics are aligned with overall business goals, then day-to-day business decisions will
be more driven by data-driven insights.
 As people drive businesses, the manpower engaged in Data Analytics must be competent and
adequately trained to support enterprise goals.
 A centrally managed team must lead the analytics production and consumption efforts in the
enterprise to bring behavioral change towards a data culture.
 The concept of Data Analytics must be spread through both formal data centers and informal social
networks for an inclusive growth.

Here are some advantages to utilizing this information:

 Quickly and easily report on the Return on Investment (ROI) by showing how performance achieved
business or target goals.
 Identify gaps and performance issues early - before they become problems.
 Identify specific learners who require additional support, regardless of how many students or
employees there are.
 Identify successful learners in order to offer positive feedback or additional resources.
 Analyze the value and impact of course design and learning resources.
 Examples of Descriptive Analytics

Descriptive Analytics: Industry Applications

In McKinsey’s 2016 Analytics Study Defines the future of Machine Learning, you will find that US retail(40%)
industry and GPS-based services (60%) are showing rapid adoption of Descriptive Analytics to track teams,
customers, and assets across locations to capture enhanced insights for operational efficiency. McKinsey also
claimed that in today’s business climate, the three most critical barriers to Data Analytics are lack of
organizational strategy, lack of involved management, and lack of available talent. Another Report suggests
that Descriptive Analytics has made great strides in supply chain mapping (SCM), manufacturing plant sensors,
and GPS vehicle tracking, to gather, organize, and view past events.

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The Role of Descriptive Analytics in Future Data Analysis

As data-driven businesses continue to use the results from Descriptive Analytics to optimize their supply
chains and enhance their decision-making powers, Data Analytics will move further away from Predictive
Analytics toward Prescriptive Analytics or rather towards a “mash-up of predictions, simulations, and
optimization.”

The future of Data Analytics lies in not only describing what has happened, but in accurately predicting what
might happen in the future. This claim is explained in the article titled The Future of Analytics Is Prescriptive,
Not Predictive. This article cites a GPS navigation system, where Descriptive Analytics is used to provide
directional cues. However, such analysis is reinforced by “Predictive Analytics” offering important details
about the journey like the time duration. Now, if the GPS system is further powered by Prescriptive Analytics,
then the navigation system will not only provide directions and time, but also the quickest way to reach the
destination. The best part of such a super-charged navigation system is that it can even compare several
traveling routes and recommend the best solution.

As Data Mining and Machine Learning jointly offer solutions to predict customer segments and marketing
ROIs, the future Predictive Analytics techniques will continue to evolve into Prescriptive Analytics, creating a
mash-up of “predictions, simulations, and optimization.”

Tools and Techniques in Descrptive Analytics

Data analysis is used in different domains like science, business, and social science. With the increasing need
of data analysis some tools that directly analyse the data and derive conclusions are in demand in the market.
Data analysis tools use many types of analysis techniques to store, manipulate and find meaningful inference
from provided data sets. Some tools also generate reports to summarize the conclusion and provide better
visualization.Data analysis tools help in deriving accurate results with minimum efforts. Now we are going to
see some of the top tools used for data analysis in different business domains. These tools can be used right
from a beginner to an expert who may or may not be from a technical background. We will consider six tools
which make analysing data sets, visualization and presentation of data easy and accurate.

The growing demand and importance of data analytics in the market have generated many openings
worldwide. It becomes slightly tough to shortlist the top data analytics tools as the open source tools are more
popular, user-friendly and performance oriented than the paid version. There are many open source tools
which doesn’t require much/any coding and manages to deliver better results than paid versions e.g. – R
programming in data mining and Tableau public, Python in data visualization. Below is the list of top 10 of data
analytics tools, both open source and paid version, based on their popularity, learning and performance.

1. R Programming

R is the leading analytics tool in the industry and widely used for statistics and data modeling. It can easily
manipulate your data and present in different ways. It has exceeded SAS in many ways like capacity of data,
performance and outcome. R compiles and runs on a wide variety of platforms viz -UNIX, Windows and
MacOS. It has 11,556 packages and allows you to browse the packages by categories. R also provides tools to
automatically install all packages as per user requirement, which can also be well assembled with Big data.

2. Tableau Public:

Tableau Public is a free software that connects any data source be it corporate Data Warehouse, Microsoft
Excel or web-based data, and creates data visualizations, maps, dashboards etc. with real-time updates
presenting on web. They can also be shared through social media or with the client. It allows the access to
download the file in different formats. If you want to see the power of tableau, then we must have very good

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data source. Tableau’s Big Data capabilities makes them important and one can analyze and visualize data
better than any other data visualization software in the market.

3.Python

Python is an object-oriented scripting language which is easy to read, write, maintain and is a free open source
tool. It was developed by Guido van Rossum in late 1980’s which supports both functional and structured
programming methods.

Phython is easy to learn as it is very similar to JavaScript, Ruby, and PHP. Also, Python has very good machine
learning libraries viz. Scikitlearn, Theano, Tensorflow and Keras. Another important feature of Python is that it
can be assembled on any platform like SQL server, a MongoDB database or JSON. Python can also handle text
data very well.

4. SAS:

Sas is a programming environment and language for data manipulation and a leader in analytics, developed by
the SAS Institute in 1966 and further developed in 1980’s and 1990’s. SAS is easily accessible, managable and
can analyze data from any sources. SAS introduced a large set of products in 2011 for customer intelligence
and numerous SAS modules for web, social media and marketing analytics that is widely used for profiling
customers and prospects. It can also predict their behaviors, manage, and optimize communications.

5. Apache Spark

The University of California, Berkeley’s AMP Lab, developed Apache in 2009. Apache Spark is a fast large-scale
data processing engine and executes applications in Hadoop clusters 100 times faster in memory and 10 times
faster on disk. Spark is built on data science and its concept makes data science effortless. Spark is also
popular for data pipelines and machine learning models development. Spark also includes a library – MLlib,
that provides a progressive set of machine algorithms for repetitive data science techniques like Classification,
Regression, Collaborative Filtering, Clustering, etc.

6. Excel

Excel is a basic, popular and widely used analytical tool almost in all industries. Whether you are an expert in
Sas, R or Tableau, you will still need to use Excel. Excel becomes important when there is a requirement of
analytics on the client’s internal data. It analyzes the complex task that summarizes the data with a preview of
pivot tables that helps in filtering the data as per client requirement. Excel has the advance business analytics
option which helps in modelling capabilities which have prebuilt options like automatic relationship detection,
a creation of DAX measures and time grouping.

7. RapidMiner:

RapidMiner is a powerful integrated data science platform developed by the same company that performs
predictive analysis and other advanced analytics like data mining, text analytics, machine learning and visual
analytics without any programming. RapidMiner can incorporate with any data source types, including Access,
Excel, Microsoft SQL, Tera data, Oracle, Sybase, IBM DB2, Ingres, MySQL, IBM SPSS, Dbase etc. The tool is very
powerful that can generate analytics based on real-life data transformation settings, i.e. you can control the
formats and data sets for predictive analysis.

8. KNIME

KNIME Developed in January 2004 by a team of software engineers at University of Konstanz. KNIME is leading
open source, reporting, and integrated analytics tools that allow you to analyze and model the data through

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visual programming, it integrates various components for data mining and machine learning via its modular
data-pipelining concept.

9. QlikView

QlikView has many unique features like patented technology and has in-memory data processing, which
executes the result very fast to the end users and stores the data in the report itself. Data association in
QlikView is automatically maintained and can be compressed to almost 10% from its original size. Data
relationship is visualized using colors – a specific color is given to related data and another color for non-
related data.

10. Splunk:

Splunk is a tool that analyzes and search the machine-generated data. Splunk pulls all text-based log data and
provides a simple way to search through it, a user can pull in all kind of data, and perform all sort of
interesting statistical analysis on it, and present it in different formats.

7.PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS

Predictive analytics is an area of statistics that deals with extracting information from data and using it to
predict trends and behavior patterns. The enhancement of predictive web analytics calculates statistical
probabilities of future events online.

 Predictive analytics statistical techniques include data modeling, machine learning, AI, deep learning
algorithms and data mining.
 "Predictive analytics—Technology that learns from experience (data) to predict the future behavior of
individuals in order to drive better decisions."

Process of Predictive Analytics

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Define project/ Project definition : Define the project outcomes, deliverable, scope of the effort,
business objectives, identify the data sets that are going to be used.

Data collection : Data mining for predictive analytics prepares data from multiple sources for analysis.
This provides a complete view of customer interactions.

Data analysis : Data Analysis is the process of inspecting, cleaning and modelling data with the
objective of discovering useful information, arriving at conclusion

Statistics : Statistical Analysis enables to validate the assumptions, hypothesis and test them using
standard statistical models.

Modelling : Predictive modelling provides the ability to automatically create accurate predictive
models about future. There are also options to choose the best solution with multi-modal evaluation.

Deployment : Predictive model deployment provides the option to deploy the analytical results into
everyday decision making process to get results, reports and output by automating the decisions based
on the modelling.

Model monitoring : Models are managed and monitored to review the model performance to ensure
that it is providing the results expected..

Tools and Techniques

 PMML
The Predictive Model Markup Language (PMML) was proposed for standard language for
expressing predictive models. Such an XML-based language provides a way for the different
tools to define predictive models and to share them. PMML 4.0 was released in June, 2009.
 Decision Trees
Decision tree techniques, also based on ML, use classification algorithms from data mining to
determine the possible risks and rewards of pursuing several different courses of action.
Potential outcomes are then presented as a flowchart which helps humans to visualize the data
through a tree-like structure.
A decision tree has three major parts: a root node, which is the starting point, along with leaf
nodes and branches. The root and leaf nodes ask questions.
The branches connect the root and leaf nodes, depicting the flow from questions to answers.
Generally, each node has multiple additional nodes extending from it, representing possible
answers. The answers can be as simple as "yes" and "no."

 Text Analytics
Much enterprise data is still stored neatly in easily queryable relational database management
systems (RDBMS). However, the big data boom has ushered in an explosion in the availability of
unstructured and semi-structured data from sources such as emails, social media, web pages,
and call center logs.

To find answers in this text data, organizations are now experimenting with new advanced
analytics techniques such as topic modeling and sentiment analysis. Text analytics uses ML,
statistical, and linguistics techniques.

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 Topic modeling is already proving itself to be very effective at examining large clusters of
text to determine the probability that specific topics are covered in a specific document.
 To predict the topics of a given document, it examines words used in the document. For
instance, words such as hospital, doctor, and patient would result in "healthcare." A law
firm might use topic modeling, for instance, to find case law pertaining to a specific subject.
 One predictive analytics technique leveraged in topic modeling, probabilistic latent
semantic indexing (PLSI), uses probability to model co-occurrence data, a term referring to
an above-chance frequency of occurrence of two terms next to each other in a certain
order.
 Sentiment analysis, also known as opinion mining, is an advanced analytics technique still in
earlier phases of development.
 Simple Statistical Modeling
Statistical techniques in predictive analytics modeling can range all the way from simple
traditional mathematical equations to complex deep machine learning processes running on
sophisticated neural networks. Multiple linear regression is the most commonly used simple
statistical method.
In predictive analytics modeling, multiple linear regression models the relationship between
two or more independent variables and one continuous dependent variable by fitting a linear
equation to observed data.
Each value of the independent variable x is associated with a value of the dependent variable y.
Let's say, for example, that data analysts want to answer the question of whether age and IQ
scores effectively predict grade point average (GPA). In this case, GPA is the dependent variable
and the independent variables are age and IQ scores
 Neural Networks
However, traditional ML-based predictive analytics techniques like multiple linear regression
aren't always good at handling big data. For instance, big data analysis often requires an
understanding of the sequence or timing of events. Neural networking techniques are much
more adept at dealing with sequence and internal time orderings. Neural networks can make
better predictions on time series information like weather data, for instance. Yet although
neural networking excels at some types of statistical analysis, its applications range much
further than that.

8.PRESCRIPTIVE ANALYTICS AND TOOLS

Big data might not be a reliable crystal ball for predicting the exact winning lottery numbers but it definitely
can highlight the problems and help a business understand why those problems occurred. Businesses can use
the data-backed and data-found factors to create prescriptions for the business problems, that lead to
realizations and observations.

Prescriptive analytics is the next step of predictive analytics that adds the spice of manipulating the future.
Prescriptive analytics advises on possible outcomes and results in actions that are likely to maximise key
business metrics. It basically uses simulation and optimization to ask “What should a business do?”

Prescriptive analytics is an advanced analytics concept based on –

 Optimization that helps achieve the best outcomes.

 Stochastic optimization that helps understand how to achieve the best outcome and identify data
uncertainties to make better decisions.

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 Simulating the future, under various set of assumptions, allows scenario analysis - which when
combined with different optimization techniques, allows prescriptive analysis to be performed.

 Prescriptive analysis explores several possible actions and suggests actions depending on the results of
descriptive and predictive analytics of a given dataset.

 Prescriptive analytics is a combination of data, and various business rules. The data for prescriptive
analytics can be both internal (within the organization) and external (like social media data).

 Business rules are preferences, best practices, boundaries and other constraints. Mathematical models
include natural language processing, machine learning, statistics, operations research, etc.

 Prescriptive analytics are comparatively complex in nature and many companies are not yet using them
in day-to-day business activities, as it becomes difficult to manage.

 Prescriptive analytics if implemented properly can have a major impact on business growth.

 Lajrge scale organizations use prescriptive analytics for scheduling the inventory in the supply chain,
optimizing production, etc. to optimize customer experience.

Larger companies are successfully using prescriptive analytics to optimize production, scheduling and
inventory in the supply chain to make sure that are delivering the right products at the right time and
optimizing the customer experience.

9.CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING BUSINESS ANALYTICS IN AN ORGANIZATION.

 Lack of technical skills in employees

 Fuss over acceptance of BA by staff
 Data Security and Maintenance
 Integrity of Data
 Delivering relevant information in the given time
 Inability to address complex issues
 Costs involved in implementing BA
 Investment of staff time in implementation of BA
 Lack of a proper strategy to implement BA

Considering the above challenges, there is a dearth of professionals who’re well-equipped with the knowledge
of Business Analytics. A BA professional can take up a corporate roles in various sectors: marketing, insurance,
management, finance, health care & lifestyle, etc. In fact, there is still hesitation to use trends and statistics for
making business decisions, and most of them still are comfortable trusting their gut feeling for making
strategic decisions.

Benefits of implementing BA in your organization

Apart from having applications in various arenas, following are the benefits of Business Analytics and its
impact on business –

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 Accurately transferring information

 Consequent improvement in efficiency
 Help portray Future Challenges
 Make Strategic decisions
 As a perfect blend of data science and analytics
 Reduction in Costs
 Improved Decisions
 Share information with a larger audience
 Ease in Sharing information with stakeholders

10.The 4 V’s of Big Data

 Volume
The main characteristic that makes data “big” is the sheer volume. It makes no sense to focus on minimum
storage units because the total amount of information is growing exponentially every year. In 2010, Thomson
Reuters estimated in its annual report that it believed the world was “awash with over 800 exabytes of data
and growing.”

For that same year, EMC, a hardware company that makes data storage devices, thought it was closer to 900
exabytes and would grow by 50 percent every year. No one really knows how much new data is being
generated, but the amount of information being collected is huge.

 Variety
Variety is one the most interesting developments in technology as more and more information is digitized.
Traditional data types (structured data) include things on a bank statement like date, amount, and time. These
are things that fit neatly in a relational database.
Structured data is augmented by unstructured data, which is where things like Twitter feeds, audio files, MRI
images, web pages, web logs are put — anything that can be captured and stored but doesn’t have a meta
model (a set of rules to frame a concept or idea — it defines a class of information and how to express it) that
neatly defines it.
Unstructured data is a fundamental concept in big data. The best way to understand unstructured data is by
comparing it to structured data. Think of structured data as data that is well defined in a set of rules. For
example, money will always be numbers and have at least two decimal points; names are expressed as text;
and dates follow a specific pattern.
 Veracity
Veracity refers to the trustworthiness of the data. Can the manager rely on the fact that the data is
representative? Every good manager knows that there are inherent discrepancies in all the data collected.
 Velocity
Velocity is the frequency of incoming data that needs to be processed. Think about how many SMS messages,
Facebook status updates, or credit card swipes are being sent on a particular telecom carrier every minute of
every day, and you’ll have a good appreciation of velocity. A streaming application like Amazon Web Services
Kinesis is an example of an application that handles the velocity of data.
 Value
It may seem painfully obvious to some, but a real objective is critical to this mashup of the four V’s. Will the
insights you gather from analysis create a new product line, a cross-sell opportunity, or a cost-cutting
measure? Or will your data analysis lead to the discovery of a critical causal effect that results in a cure to a
disease?

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11.DATA ANALYTICS (DA)

It is the process of examining data sets in order to draw conclusions about the information they contain,
increasingly with the aid of specialized systems and software. Data analytics technologies and techniques are
widely used in commercial industries to enable organizations to make more-informed business decisions and
by scientists and researchers to verify or disprove scientific models, theories and hypotheses.

Different Types Of Data Analytics

Let me take you through the main types of analytics and the scenarios under which they are normally
employed.

1. Descriptive Analytics

As the name implies, descriptive analysis or statistics can summarize raw data and convert it into a form that
can be easily understood by humans. They can describe in detail about an event that has occurred in the past.
This type of analytics is helpful in deriving any pattern if any from past events or drawing interpretations from
them so that better strategies for the future can be framed

This is the most frequently used type of analytics across organizations. It’s crucial in revealing the key metrics
and measures within any business.

2. Diagnostic Analytics

The obvious successor to descriptive analytics is diagnostic analytics. Diagnostic analytical tools aid an analyst
to dig deeper into an issue at hand so that they can arrive at the source of a problem.

In a structured business environment, tools for both descriptive and diagnostic analytics go hand-in-hand!

3. Predictive Analytics

Any business that is pursuing success should have foresight. Predictive analytics helps businesses to forecast
trends based on the current events. Whether it’s predicting the probability of an event happening in future or
estimating the accurate time it will happen can all be determined with the help of predictive analytical models.

Usually, many different but co-dependent variables are analyzed to predict a trend in this type of analysis. For
example, in the healthcare domain, prospective health risks can be predicted based on an individual’s
habits/diet/genetic composition. Therefore, these models are most important across various fields.

4. Prescriptive Analytics

This type of analytics explains the step-by-step process in a situation. For instance, a prescriptive analysis is
what comes into play when your Uber driver gets the easier route from Gmaps. The best route was chosen by
considering the distance of every available route from your pick-up route to the destination and the traffic
constraints on each road.

A data analyst would need to apply one or more of the above analytics processes as a part of his job. After
reading the above post, are you left wondering how to become a data analyst, then this blog post is for you! If
you are wondering about the scope of data analytics in India, this blog would be an

Below is the Top 8 Comparison between the Data Analytics vs Business AnalyticsData Analytics vs Business
Analytics Infographics

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BASIS FOR COMPARISON

Focus: A business analyst would be responsible for making the reports, KPI(Key Performance Index) matrix,
trends in the data which would help the organization. A data analyst would just play with the data to find
patterns, correlations and even build models to see how the data responds to his/her models.

Process: A business analyst would do a static and comparative study of the data. A data analyst would
do an explanatory analysis and then will try to experiment with data mining processes so as to give a good
visual representation of the data.

Data Sources: A business analysts would pre-plan his/her sources of data as to what all are necessary and
which should be excluded which is a slow process. A data analyst finds a correlation on some data which is
not a part of his earlier dataset then he/she would add the data source on the fly as needed.

Transform: A business analyst would transform the data upfront which is carefully planned. All the
transformations are done in-database and whenever there is a demand to enrich data it is done on the fly.

Data Quality : A business analyst would always present the data as a single version of truth. A business
analyst would go by the phrase “Good enough” or theoretically with the probabilities.

Data Model : A business analyst would go with schema on load data model. A data analyst would go with
schema on query data model.

Analysis : business analytics is Retrospective , descriptive. Data analytics is Predictive, prescriptive

Field : A subset of computer science and management where the study of data is done by using different
methods and technologies. Data analytics covers entire technological field which is a superset of Data
Science.

12.DATA

Data are individual units of information.A datum describes a single quality or quantity of some object or
phenomenon. In analytical processes, data are represented by variables.

Although the terms "data", "information" and "knowledge" are often used interchangeably, each of these
terms has a distinct meaning. In popular publications, data is sometimes said to be transformed into
information when it is viewed in context or in post-analysis. In academic treatments of the subject, however,
data are simply units of information. Data is employed in scientific research, businesses management (e.g.,
sales data, revenue, profits, stock price), finance, governance (e.g., crime rates, unemployment rates, literacy
rates), and in virtually every other form of human organizational activity.

Types of Data

Quantitative

Quantitative data deals with numbers and things you can measure objectively: dimensions such as height,
width, and length. Temperature and humidity. Prices. Area and volume.

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Qualitative

Qualitative data deals with characteristics and descriptors that can't be easily measured, but can be observed
subjectively—such as smells, tastes, textures, attractiveness, and color.

Quantitative Flavors: Continuous Data and Discrete Data

There are two types of quantitative data, which is also referred to as numeric data: continuous and discrete.
As a general rule, counts are discrete and measurements are continuous.

Discrete

Discrete data is a count that can't be made more precise. Typically it involves integers. For instance, the
number of children (or adults, or pets) in your family is discrete data, because you are counting whole,
indivisible entities: you can't have 2.5 kids, or 1.3 pets.

Continuous

Continuous data, on the other hand, could be divided and reduced to finer and finer levels. For example, you
can measure the height of your kids at progressively more precise scales—meters, centimeters, millimeters,
and beyond—so height is continuous data.

Interval

Interval scales are numeric scales in which we know both the order and the exact differences between the
values. The classic example of an interval scale is Celsius temperature because the difference between each
value is the same.

Ratio

Ratio scales provide a wealth of possibilities when it comes to statistical analysis. These variables can be
meaningfully added, subtracted, multiplied, divided (ratios). Central tendency can be measured by mode,
median, or mean; measures of dispersion, such as standard deviation and coefficient of variation can also be
calculated from ratio scales.

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Qualitative Flavors: Binomial Data, Nominal Data, and Ordinal Data

There are three main kinds of qualitative data.

Binary data place things in one of two mutually exclusive categories: right/wrong, true/false, or accept/reject.

ordinal data, in which items are assigned to categories that do have some kind of implicit or natural order,
such as "Short, Medium, or Tall.

Nomiinal data, we assign individual items to named categories that do not have an implicit or natural value or
rank.

13.DATA ANALYTICS MODELS

1. Predictive Churn Prevention Models

Retain Your Customer Base

Leverage your ERP data to build models of customer behavior that can identify who is likely to switch to a
competitor and why. These valuable models can be used to prevent customer churn and help implement
highly effective retention campaigns to save your enterprise substantial revenue.

2. Predictive Customer Lifetime Value Models

Identify Your High-Value Customers

Put your big data to work and calculate customer lifetime value. Pinpoint individuals with a propensity to
invest more in your products and services so that relationships can be cultivated and nurtured to ensure a
continuous revenue stream.

3. Customer Segmentation Models

Refine Your Messaging

Group customers based on similar characteristics and buying behaviors in order to align your company’s
marketing strategy and develop targeted outreach programs to these groups. Your big data mining could also
uncover new insights that alter your marketing tactics!

4. Adaptive & Predictive Next-Best-Action Models

Get to Know Your Customers

These predictive analytics models foresee the next best action by observing, learning and responding to life-
event patterns, purchasing behaviors, social media interactions, and additional aspects. This allows your
company to determine which customers need to be approached and the best channel to contact them.

5. Predictive Maintenance Models

Don’t Fall Prey to Unforeseen Expenses

Predictive maintenance models can help forecast previously unpredictable machine breakdown, thereby
helping companies to calculate and improve maintenance planning, leading to decreases in costly downtime
of critical equipment.

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6. Predictive Product Propensity Models

Know What Customers Will Purchase Before They Do

Integrate your customer’s online behavior from social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with
their historical purchasing data to identify and understand factors that will influence future purchasing
decisions. Models can be used to identify which products a customer is likely to buy and automatically provide
recommendations, thereby increasing sales and driving revenue growth.

7. Quality Assurance Models

Evoke Confidence in Your Products

Quality assurance models prevent defects in your products and avoid headaches when delivering solutions to
your customers. Use historical data to detect and solve problems in production and ensure that equipment,
machinery and processes are delivering proper output and quality. These models will provide you with the
peace of mind and keep your quality management on point.

8. Predictive Risk Models

Identify and Mitigate Your Risks

Banking, insurance and telecommunications organizations are capable of mining big data with models
designed to deliver faster insights into fraud and score liabilities. These models are designed to help
organizations spot and abate risk exposure. Auritas uses and recommends an industry standard process called
CRISP-DM, which is an acronym for Cross Industry Practices for Data Mining.

9. Sentiment Analysis Models

Protect Your Reputation

Sentiment analysis, or “opinion mining” models identify, extract and categorize information from publicly
available data sources, such as online reviews, blogs and social media posts. Their purpose is to analyze and
determine sentiments towards an organization and its products and services. Assess the polarity of product
reviews and discussions around the web and quickly adopt strategies designed to counter negative opinions
and enhance positive sentiment.

10. Predictive Upsell & Cross-Sell Models

Sell More, Sell Smarter

Alleviate the depletion of resources and increase selling power to support year-over-year growth. Predictive
upsell and cross-sell models combine buying behaviors and market basket analyses to reveal insights into
which products and services customers have the propensity to purchase and actively cross-sell and upsell
them.

14.DECISION-MAKING PROCESS: 6 STEPS

Decision-making, is the process of evaluating two or more alternatives leading to a final choice, sometimes
known as Alternative Choices Decisions. It is a formal method for making a choice, fre-quently involving both
quantitative and qualitative analyses. Decision-making is closely associated with planning for the future and is
directed towards a specific objective or goal.

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The care put into each decision often determines the level of outcome. Still the best process and even the best
decision does not guarantee a successful outcome. The future determines its own fate, but the best prepared
decision is more likely to produce the desired result than any other selection.

1. Determine/Clarify the Decision Problem/Strategic Issues

The first step in decision making process, which is very important, is to identity and define the problem, or
strategic issues which require making decisions. This helps the decision maker to focus on the right questions
involved in decision. Greater managerial skill and expertise is required in defining a decision problem to
subsequently address it correctly. For example, a production manager might wrongly consider the choice as
make or buy a part for a product when the correct decision might be to determine whether the product
should be redesigned so the part is not needed.

Sometimes, the decision problem is quite complex. For example, the demand for a company’s popular product
is declining. What are the reasons for it? Declining quality control? Decrease in cus-tomer satisfaction?
Increasing competition? Availability of alternative product in the market? Higher selling prices? etc.

Before a decision can be made, the problem needs to be clarified and defined in more specific terms. In some
situations, the decision problem may itself be clear. For example, a business firm may receive a special order
for its product at a price below the regular market price. The decision under this situation is clear i.e. whether
to accept or reject the order.

2. Specify the Criteria

After identifying the decision problem, the decision maker should specify the criteria upon which a decision is
to be made. Most often, the criteria or the objective can be easily quantified such as minimizing cost,
improving profit through increased return on investment, increasing share of company product in the market.

Sometimes the criteria or the objectives are in conflict with each other, such as where reducing cost, quality of
the product needs to be maintained. Also, in some situa-tions, other interested parties or stakeholders like
shareholders; creditors may have their own separate criteria or objectives. Therefore, a manager most often is
forced to think of multiple objectives, both the quantifiable short-term goals and the more strategic difficult-
to-quantify goals.

3. Identify Alternatives as Possible Solutions to the Problem

Decision making is choosing between the alternatives. If the objective is to increase sales, there can be many
alternatives to achieve this goal. If a machine breaks down, it could be repaired or replaced. Within the
replacement, it may be bought or leased. Determining the possible alternatives is an important step in the
decision making process.

Those alternatives that are clearly not feasible should be eliminated from the decision making process.

4. Perform Relevant Information Analysis

In this fourth step, a manager collects relevant data (relevant costs and relevant benefits) as-sociated with
each feasible alternative. Selecting data relating to decision is one of the management accountant’s most
important roles in an organization. In this decision making step, manager performs an analysis of relevant
costs and relevant benefits (revenues) and other pertinent strategic issues. Manager also makes predictions
about relevant information corresponding to alternatives in terms of future values of relevant costs and
relevant revenues.

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Managers should also identify and analyze, to the extent possible, non-financial advantages and disadvantages
(known as qualitative factors) about each feasible alternative while performing relevant information analysis.

5. Select and Implement the Best Alternative

Based on the relevant cost and relevant revenue analysis, the manager, in the fifth step, selects the best
alternative and executes it.

6. Evaluate Performance

In the sixth and final step, the manager evaluates the performance of the implemented decision as a
basis for feedback to a possible reconsideration of this decision as it relates to future decisions. The decision
process is thus a feedback-based system in which the manager continually evaluates the results of prior
analyses and decisions to discover any opportunities for improvement in decision making.

15.RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BUSINESS ANALYTICS AND SIX SIGMA

Most Big Data analytics teams have currently embraced using an Agile approach to acquiring knowledge from
their sprints. I am sure you have heard of analysis paralysis? Each agile sprint focuses on answering a single
question from the data. That answer is used to provide new and additional knowledge about process or issue.
Knowledge is acquired from sprints and the team tries to leverage it to benefit the business as new
knowledge.

Six sigma is a methodology focused on making decisions based on skillfully acquired data about a problem. Big
Data teams try to gather data to answer some plaguing question that no one in the business appears to know
the correct answer.

The real difference is Six Sigma uses statistically based small sample sizes to unlock the knowledge. Big data
uses relatively huge ( almost population sized ) data and looks for the statistically identified trends or patterns
to unlock the knowledge. Sounds almost the same, except, Big Data analysis requires the horse power of
computers and computer arrays to crunch all the data relatively quickly to search for the data patterns. Some
systems can gather data and analyze in almost real-time quickness. I have worked with automated systems
that gather dozens of data points every second and make decisions from the data just as quickly. Traditional
Six Sigma doesn’t necessarily have to solve a problem that quickly and definitely not with that large of a data
set.

Relationships between business analytics and tqm

The main focus of Total quality management is to maintain existing quality standards whereas Six Sigma
primarily focuses on making small necessary changes in the processes and systems to ensure high quality.

The process of Total quality management does reach to a saturation level after a certain period of time. After
reaching the saturation stage, no further improvements in quality can be made. Six Sigma on the other hand
seldom reaches the saturation stage by initiating a next level quality process.

The process of Total quality management involves improvement in existing policies and procedures to ensure
high quality. Six-Sigma focuses on improving quality by minimizing and eventually eliminating defects from the
system. The process of total Quality management ensures that every single member associated with the
organization is working towards the improvement of existing processes, systems, services and work culture for

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long term quality products/services. Six Sigma, on the other hand focuses on first identifying and eventually
removing various defects and obstacles which might come in the way of organization’s success. In a layman’s
language total quality management emphasizes on improving the existing policies and making necessary
changes in the systems to ensure superior quality products and services. Organizations practicing Six Sigma are
focused on removing errors and defects to ensure high quality products.

Total Quality management is a less complicated process than Six Sigma. Six-Sigma involves specially trained
individuals whereas total quality management does not require extensive training. The process of Six Sigma
creates special levels for employees who are only eligible to implement the same. Employees trained for Six
Sigma are often certified as “Green Belts” or “Black Belts” depending on their level of proficiency. Six-Sigma
requires participation of only certified professionals whereas total quality management can be referred to a
part time activity which does not require any special training. Six-Sigma can be implemented by dedicated and
well trained professionals.

Six-Sigma is known to deliver better and effective results as compared to total quality management. The
process of Six Sigma is based on customer feedbacks and is more accurate and result oriented. Customer
feedbacks play an important role in Six Sigma. Experts predict that six sigma will outshine total quality
management in due course of time.

16.STRATEGIC OF BUSINESS ANALYTICS

Competing ON Analytics

Analytics is THE key competitive advantage

Target Result – Sustainable competitive advantage

Competing WITH Analytics

Focus on one business process

Target result – Incremental profits

Improving With Analytics

Culture of analytics

Target result – Continuous improvement

Revenue Through Analytics

"Sell” data as a secondary product

Improved margins or market share

Persevering Through Analytics

Do what the competition does

The price of entry

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17.SPREEDSHEET MODELLING

A spreadsheet consists of cells arranged in rows and columns. Each cell can hold text, a number, or a
mathematical formula. A cell is referred to by column and row, e.g., the upper left cell is cell A1. The cell
right below that is A2, etc.

Column width and row height can be adjusted by dragging the separation line between columns (or rows) to
the desired size. .

Entering data

Before carrying out most commands, you must first select the part of the worksheet you want to work with.
You may select a single cell or a range of cells, but a formula will only be applied to one cell at a time. When
you click the cell you want to select, it will be surrounded by a dark border. To select a range of cells, click at
the first cell and drag the mouse pointer to select the rest of the cells. Alternatively, click at the first cell,
hold down the shift key, and click at the last cell in the range. The cells between the two clicks will be
selected. One of the strips below the menu bar is the formula bar. It tells you which cell you are working on
and gives you space to enter your formula. The picture below shows the cell A2 being selected. The formula
bar indicates that A2 is the cell the data will go into. The formula being entered into that cell is "1+1". The
result of that formula, 2, will be shown in that cell.

Hit enter or click at the check mark if the formula is correct. Click the X to clear the formula you have just
entered if you want to re-enter the formula.

You can enter text, a number, or a formula in any cell. Think of them as placeholders for your data. Text and
numbers can be typed in directly but formulae must start with an "=" sign. You enter a formula in the same
way you enter a formula in a "normal" calculator (not HP). To enter a more advanced mathematical
function, go to the Insert menu and select Function… Select the desired function, e.g., SIN(), SQRT(), PI(), etc.

The function you selected will be pasted into the formula bar.

*** Excel will not work with degrees. Any value you enter into a trigonometric function must be in radians.
The formula for π is "PI()" with an empty parenthesis. ***

You can use any combination of numbers and cell references in a formula.

To take a square root of the result of the formula in cell A2, enter the formula and indicate the cell where
the spreadsheet should get the number from by clicking that cell or by typing in the cell name directly in the
"( )" part of the formula.

A formula can be copied and pasted using the usual Copy and Paste commands so that you can perform a
similar operation on some other number without having to retype the formula. The spreadsheet is smart
enough to index the cell reference for you. For example, if you select and copy cell B2 and then select and
paste into cell B3 the formula in that cell will be "=SQRT(A3)". It will operate on the cell A3 instead of A2. If
you want to refer to the same cell after pasting the formula somewhere else, put "$" in front of the column
and row number, e.g., $A$2, to prevent the program from indexing your cell reference.

Other commands

There are other commands that may be of interest when working in aspreadsheet.

Menu Command Description Edit Undo Undo last command.

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Paste Special... Let you paste just the formula, format, or value of a copied cell Delete... Delete a cell, range
of cells, column, or rowin the middle of a spreadsheet. Be careful

when using Delete...Fill Copy and paste the same formula across rows or down columns.

Insert Chart... Insert a graph based on selected range of data.

Function... Scrolling list of functions that can be used.

Format Cell... Change the format of numbers, fonts, etc,displayed on the screen.

Data Sort... Sorting a range of cells in ascending or descending order.

There is also an online help available under Help menu.

Matrix operations

Excel will perform matrix operations on an array (group of cell). The formula for these operations starts with
an “M”.

MINVERSE( ) inverse of a matrix

MMULT( ) matrix multiplication

MDETERM( ) determinant of a matrix

To perform a matrix operation, select the cell or range of cells that the results will be placed. Then, type in
the formula with appropriate range of cells. Alternatively, use “Function…” or function button to insert
theformula. Doing it this way, a popup window will come up with spaces to fill in or drag the range of cells
the function will operate on. (This window can be moved anywhere on the screen.)

If the results will occupy more than one cell, hold down “crtl” and “shift” key when hitting the “enter” key or
clicking “OK” for the formula.

Graphing

Excel provide a selection of graph types that can be used to plot any two or more column of numbers. Select
a range of data to be ploted then click the “Chart Wizard” button, . A chart wizard window will come up
withoptions for various chart type. Most of the time, “XY (Scatter)” is the appropriate chart type.Clicking on
the chart type on the left will show sub-type availabled. Select the desired sub-type and click the “Next”
botton. The three windows that follow are used to set options for the charts and specifying the location of
that chart. A chart can be placed in its own sheet or same sheet as the data.

Curvefitting can be added by using “Add Trendline…” command while the chart is selected.

18.CUSTOMER ANALYTICS

Customer analytics is a process by which data from customer behaviour is used to help make key business
decisions via market segmentation and predictive analytics. This information is used by businesses for direct
marketing, site selection, and customer relationship management. Marketing provides services in order to
satisfy customers. With that in mind, the productive system is considered from its beginning at the production
level, to the end of the cycle at the consumer. Customer analytics plays an important role in the prediction of
customer behaviour.

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Customer analytics, also called customer data analytics, is the systematic examination of a company's
customer information and customer behaviour to identify, attract and retain the most profitable customers.

The goal of customer analytics is to create a single, accurate view of a customer to make decisions about how
best to acquire and retain customers, identify high-value customers and proactively interact with them. The
better the understanding of a customer's buying habits and lifestyle preferences, the more accurate predictive
behaviours become and the better the customer journey becomes. Without large amounts of accurate data,
any insight derived from analysis could be wildly inaccurate.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CUSTOMER ANALYTICS AND SOCIAL ANALYTICS

Customer Analytics

 Saves time and money by helping you deal with the right set of customers, which increases your
conversion rate, which in turn improves your ROI
 Helps you earn long-time customer loyalty
 Significantly reduces marketing costs since your efforts are only focused on people who are interested
in your project or service
 Lets you design campaigns to actively engage your customers
 Helps you deliver a tailored message addressing the specific needs of your targeted customer.
Social Analytics

Social Analytics refers to the collection and analysis of statistical, digital data on how users interface with an
organization,particularlyonline.

Over the last decade, social analytics has become a primary form of business intelligence, used to identify,
predict, and respond to consumer behaviour. Throughout our everyday lives, when browsing on an online
store, using a member card to buy groceries on sale, or sharing special offers from our favourite coffee shop
on our social networks, each of us continually drops pieces of intelligence. With nearly every click we make,
data about our online activity is being collected; it would be difficult to find a website that didn’t monitor and
analyse its usage in some way. Some websites use only one social analytics tool (e.g. UBC uses Google
Analytics), while others use many more. Indeed, this site is being analysed using Google
Analytics. Social analytics programs enable analysts to glimpse meaningful trends in this mass of data.

19.OPERATIONAL ANALYTICS

Operational Analytics is a kind of business analytics that monitors day-to-day operations of the organization
and improves current operations. In this type of analytics, various tasks like data mining, data collection and
data manipulation are included to get accurate guidelines for the entire business plan.

Operational analytics solutions transform data into insights to improve decision-making, lower costs, and
enhance service levels. Sales and Operations Planning, which include Demand Forecasting, Inventory
Management, Network Optimization, Contact Center Operations and Human Resource Operations, are several
factors that make the bottom line better in operational analytics.

Analytics Power in Business

Ways to select Operational KPIs and Metrics

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There is no question that the KPIs and metrics are needed for operational improvements. Every business is
different from each other, so work criteria can also vary. In this process, selecting the required KPI will
certainly improve the business. Select KPI to achieve success, which will provide long-term value to the
company.

Measure: You should be more specific when determining which business metrics to measure. And also make
sure that this is the most useful solution when it comes to determining whether you have achieved your goal
or not.

For example, if you want to measure LinkedIn engagement, you have to focus on how many people liked, how
many postings they shared and commented on. Overall, you have to determine the number of impressions
received in the post.

In addition, you may also need to measure the number of new customers and the percentage of new
customer development.

Duration: Like the measurement, the time duration of selection of KPI is also very important aspect. It
depends on how much time you are taking to select a particular metric or KPI. It will be a waste of time if we
are choosing KPI which is not helpful in the organization and ultimately, we will not get enough time for the
proper KPIs.

Target: Set your target before going to any item. And also told how long it will take to get this effect. To make
the work easier and more precise, pre-set all the implementations and make the best comparison between
the two options.

Source of data: The data here is the backbone of any organization. The overall progress depends on how we
are collecting and refining the data.

Make sure that the data gathered would be accurate and precise. This process is done in the observation of
the top level manage so there should be no any chance of mistake.

Examples of Operational Analytics

Demand Planning
Demand Analysis and Forecasting is predicting future demand for a product or service on the basis of past
events and prevailing trends.

Critical to a well oiled Supply Chain, Demand Forecasting analysis may be used in production planning,
inventory management, assessing future capacity requirements, or in making decisions on whether to enter a
new market. Further, customers demand immediate responses irrespective of location or time and you need
to meet these needs rapidly, and cost-effectively.
● Use demand forecasting analysis techniques such as predictive algorithms to better forecast demand
based on internal and external factors.
● Explain the key explanatory variables that impact the demand at the most granular levels.
● Establish the level of significance of the key explanatory variables.
Simulate various scenarios leveraging the explanatory variables to help shape demand.
Get a visibility on ROI from various marketing inputs such as promotions.
Margin Analysis
Revenue Analysis

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20.BUSINESS ANALYTICS CYCLE

Define what is being investigated

A number of years ago I was involved in an exercise with a major brewer as to what areas of the business were
the most profitable. As profitability was the main focus, the model concentrated on the different sources of
income and associated costs. They brewed beer which was sold through pubs they owned as well as other
outlets such as supermarkets, restaurants and independent pubs. They also sold products such as wines and
spirits bought in from other suppliers – all of which were put into the model so that profitability could be
calculated by brand and outlet over time.

Collect relevant data

Now the model was built we had to find the data. As a tip, don’t create a model from the data that is to hand
– first model what you need and then go find the data. Of course we didn’t have all the data we needed, so
estimates were made but noted that they were estimates. As models evolve, you might need to consider
replacing these estimates with systems that can supply facts.

Model / analyse the data

Once the model was completed extensive analysis of the data was performed. This was done by posing a
number of questions such as ‘How has profitability of beer changed over time compared to spirits?”, and
‘Which locations have the lowest cost/structure per unit sold’. We were using a specialised analytic system so
answering these questions was quite easy.

Adapt the Model

What surprised us was the answers. It appeared the most profitable area of the business was the product
labelled ‘Other’, which was a ‘catch all’ for revenue that didn’t fall into beer and spirits. So the model was
adapted to look at ‘Other’ in more detail. This revealed that most of the organisation’s profits were coming

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from the gambling machines placed in the pubs they managed. The organisation thought they were a drinks
company but in fact they had become part of the leisure industry.

Use Model as a basis for Planning

Now profitability was understood, arrangements were made to improve this through targeted marketing
campaigns, incentives and restructures. The model again was adapted for these and now used to assign
budgets and predict future performance.

Monitor Model Performance

The last step was then to track performance to see whether the changes were having the right effect.Of
course, this isn’t really the last step. And that’s because the world we live in isn’t static. There will always be
more/different competitors, the markets will continue to change – and so must our analytic models. Models
are never finished – they need to continually evolve if they are to be of any real use.

Methods of Data Exploration

Data exploration is the first step in data analysis and typically involves summarizing the main characteristics of
a data set, including its size, accuracy, initial patterns in the data and other attributes.Data exploration is
typically conducted using a combination of automated and manual activitiesAutomated activities can include
data profiling or data visualization or tabular reports to give the analyst an initial view into the data and an
understanding of key characteristics.

Companies can conduct data exploration via a combination of automated and manual methods. Analysts
commonly use automated tools such as data visualization software for data exploration because these tools
allow users to quickly and simply view most of the relevant features of a data set. From this step, users can
identify variables that are likely to have interesting observations.

By displaying data graphically -- for example, through scatter plots, density plots or bar charts -- users can see
if two or more variables correlate and determine if they are good candidates for further analysis, which may
include:

Univariate analysis: The analysis of one variable.

Bivariate analysis: The analysis of two variables to determine their relationship.

Multivariate analysis: The analysis of multiple outcome variables.

Principal components analysis: The analysis and conversion of possibly correlated variables into a smaller
number of uncorrelated variables.

Manual data exploration methods may include filtering and drilling down into data in Excel spreadsheets or
writing scripts to analyze raw data sets. After the data exploration is complete, analysts can move on to the
data discovery phase to answer specific questions about a business issue. The data discovery process involves
using business intelligence tools to examine trends, sequences and events and creating visualizations to
present to business leaders.

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21.BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

According to Solomon Negash and Paul Gray, business intelligence (BI) is a systems that
combine:
• Data gathering
• Data storage
• Knowledge management
with analysis to evaluate complex corporate and competitive information for presentation to
planners and decision maker, with the objective of improving the timeliness and the quality of
the input to the decision process.

According to Forrester Research, business intelligence is "a set of methodologies, processes,

architectures, and technologies that transform raw data into meaningful and useful information
used to enable more effective strategic, tactical, and operational insights and decision-making."
Under this definition, business intelligence encompasses information management (data
integration, data quality, data warehousing, master-data management, text- and content-analytics,
etc ) .Therefore, Forrester refers to data preparation and data usage as two separate but closely
linked segments of the business-intelligence architectural stack.

Some elements of business intelligence are:

• Multidimensional aggregation and allocation
• Denormalization, tagging, and standardization
• Realtime reporting with analytical alert
• A method of interfacing with unstructured data sources
• Group consolidation, budgeting and rolling forecasts
• Statistical inference and probabilistic simulation
• Key performance indicators optimization
• Version control and process management
• Open item management

Forrester distinguishes this from the business-intelligence market, which is "just the top layers of
the BI architectural stack, such as reporting, analytics, and dashboards."

Business intelligence (BI) comprises the strategies and technologies used by enterprises for the
data analysis of business information. BI technologies provide historical, current and predictive
views of business operations. Common functions of business intelligence technologies include
reporting, online analytical processing, analytics, data mining, process mining, complex event
processing, business performance management, benchmarking, text mining, predictive analytics
and prescriptive analytics. BI technologies can handle large amounts of structured and
sometimes unstructured data to help identify, develop and otherwise create new strategic
business opportunities. They aim to allow for the easy interpretation of these big data.
Identifying new opportunities and implementing an effective strategy based on insights can
provide businesses with a competitive market advantage and long-term stability.

Business intelligence can be used by enterprises to support a wide range of business decisions
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ranging from operational to strategic. Basic operating decisions include product positioning or
pricing. Strategic business decisions involve priorities, goals and directions at the broadest level.
In all cases, BI is most effective when it combines data derived from the market in which a
company operates (external data) with data from company sources internal to the business such
as financial and operations data (internal data). When combined, external and internal data can
provide a complete picture which, in effect, creates an "intelligence" that cannot be derived from
any singular set of data. Amongst myriad uses, business intelligence tools empower
organizations to gain insight into new markets, to assess demand and suitability of products and
services for different market segments and to gauge the impact of marketing efforts.
Often BI applications use data gathered from a data warehouse (DW) or from a data mart, and
the concepts of BI and DW combine as "BI/DW" or as "BIDW". A data warehouse contains a
copy of analytical data that facilitate decision support.

22.LEVELS OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

New technologies are revolutionizing the way in which companies make their most important and strategic
decisions. The last concept to join this revolution is Business Intelligence.
This term refers to the strategies and tools that serve to transform information into knowledge with the aim of
improving market studies and the process of business decision making.

There are 5 levels in business intelligence they are,

 Observation
 Understanding
 Prediction
 Collaboration
 Decision
OBSERVATION
What is happening around the company? Business Intelligence begins its process as an observer. Thanks to
working with Big Data, a large amount of information can be treated and analysed. Information that
sometimes does not seem to be related to the final strategy of a company, but that this tool uses and an
advantage point and to differentiate from other conventional instruments of information analysis.

↠ UNDERSTANDING
Being able to access large amounts of information is not relevant if we are not able to understand it.
Therefore, Business Intelligence offers a deep analysis of the information obtained through cross referencing
data.

↠ PREDICTION
In addition to observing and understanding, this new technology is capable of predicting what would happen
to the company with its current strategy if the market was modified by some external cause. And the fact is
that markets are constantly changing so being able to predict these changes gives a company tranquillity and
extra serenity.

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↠ COLLABORATION

When the results of the analysis of the data are known, collaboration between the work teams of companies
is necessary. This is the most crucial phase of all, since the interpretation of this given data will determine the
company’s success or failure in their strategies.

↠ DECISION
It is the last step of the process, the most anticipated. In the decision phase, the company shows the result of
the analysis of the data with all its interpretations and simulations and, based on these outcomes, decides the
direction of the new strategies of the company.

23.DATA VISUALIZATION

The definition of data visualization explains the importanceof the data by placing the data in terms of
visual context .It involves the creation and study of the visual representation of data which is known as
information. The data visualization provides the user to acquire more knowledge about the raw data which is
collected from thevariety of sources. The visualization can be done by using the dashboards, where the
undetected text, patterns andcorrelations can be easily visualized by using the visualization software. The
growth of data in the present world is drastically increased, where tons of data is produced from different
fields. Due to this enormous growth of data the value of data becomes an important factor in every aspect.
The Dataexploration and visualization systems play a vital role in the Big Data era. It is a complex task for the
companies to explore and visualize very large datasets. Every company should followsome protocol to have
accurate insight from analysis of largevolume of data. This strategy helps organizations to enhancetheir
process and to find the new product and serviceopportunities that they may have otherwise missed. It also
describes about the different techniques and tools currently used for the visualization of datasets and
theircapabilities to support massive volume of data from variety of data sources.

The main uses of data visualization are:

A. Improve In Decision Making

The data visualization helps the organization to view their position and the process carried by the
organization.According to the visualization and analyzes of data thecompany can take better decision and they
can also changetheir business flow according to it.

B. Improvement In ROI

They can also increase the company ROI by knowing theirplus and minus of their business flow. Once
analyzingprocess is done the visualization gives the company a clear idea about their mistake. By rectifying it
the company can have their increase in return on investment.

C. Information Sharing

The data visualization helps the company to gain knowledgeabout their previous and present business
flow. The plays a vital role in improving the process to gain information from the raw data and they can share
to avoid misconceptions.

D. Time Saving

It is one of the main advantages of using data visualization in company. Instead of going for trail error
method, thecompany can identified the problem and the immediatecountermeasures is taken, so that the
saving of time is done by retrieving accurate insights of data in short span of time

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DATA VISUALIZATION TOOLS IN BIG DATA

A. Data Wrapper

It is used to create data visualization and make it very easy for the end user to grasp the knowledge
from the raw data. By using the data wrapper tool the user can easily generate graph and it can be done by
simple steps with good web based GUI (Graphics User Interface).The user can save time for creating
visualizations. The user should upload the data and they should choose which kind of visualization they need
for analyzing.

B. Dygraphs

It is one of the main data visualization tool used for representing large volume of data. They use java
script based charting library. Even though they use some scripting language they are user friendly with an
effective output

interface. The user can able to get knowledge due to its flexibility interface. The user should have prior
knowledgeabout web programming to get started with a chart.

C. Chart JS

From the name we can understand that it data visualize is carried in the form of chart. The user should
include the library in your frontend code. Once the process is completed the user can use the API from the
library to work with charts and assign values.

D. Charted

It is simple to use and the user can upload their data file as input data in .csv file format. If the user
needs to customize the chart, they should have simple coding knowledge for fetching the data.

E. D3

The term D3 refers to the data driven documents. It contains JavaScript library to help user bind
random data to the DOM (document object model). They have the ability to apply data-driven transformations
to the document. As you know, DOM is a programming API that allows programmers to access documents as
objects. These objects indicate the structure of document they need to model. The user should know about
programming knowledge for creating graphs.

TECHNIQUES USED FOR DATA VISUALIZATIONS

The techniques are also used for visualize massive volume ofdata. Some of the important data visualization
techniques used by the big data environment to get deep insights about the large volume of data are
discussed. Most of the companies are using these techniques for analyzing the data.

A. One Dimensional (1-D)

The data set which comes under the 1 d consists of onevariable and it has only a value per each data
item. The histograms are used for carrying data visualizations for one dimensional data

B. Two Dimensional (2-D)

Mostly two dimensional is used for visualize the data set, which contains two variables. It can be done
easily byknowing the relationship between two variables. The 2Dvisualizations can be represented in the form
of line graphs, by comparing the relationship between two variables ad plotting can be done according to it.

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The 2d can also be represented in form of bar charts, area charts, pie charts, maps, scatter plots and stream
line and arrow visualizations.

C. Three Dimensional (3-D)

The 3 d representation of data will give more knowledge tothe user, where they can easily find the
merits and demerits of their business flow, study etc. It contains values in threedimensional spaces. it gives
information in the form of slicing techniques, 3D bar charts,Iso-surface and realistic renderings.

D. Multi-Dimensional

The multi dimensional visualization gives the user a clearidea in different perspective. The different
techniques used such as parallel coordinates, maps, scatterplot matrices,auto-glyphs.

E. Temporal Technique

It is a technique, where most of the data can be easilydisplayed and the temporal technique has the
ability to display the data in many views such as timeline, time series and scatter plot.

F. Tree Map

It is also known as hierarchical model, where the data isnested in form of rectangle and it represents
each branch of the tree. The sub branch is represented as in form of smaller rectangles and leaf node is used
for describing the specified dimension on the data. Sometimes the coloured leafnodes are used to display a
separate dimension of data. It also provides the user a proper display of data in ahierarchical manner.

G. Network Technique

It is mostly used for analyzing all kinds of data extracted from variety of data fields. It has the ability to
collect the data in social media, website and blog and present in the form of network. The end user can know
which area has to be improved and where the company gains more profit etc. By gaining knowledge from
these results the company will have some global idea about their products and place themselves in a better
position in the market

Data visualization may not be an exact solution for analyzingthe large volume of data, where they need
to carry pre-process like proper extraction of data from variety of data sources. They should know the 3v's of
data such as volume, variety, velocity and value. According to it, the company should select the proper
database, process, scripting language and last the proper data visualization tool. These strategies help the
business people to know the value of each data and how to process the data and analyze it and how to
improve their business value. By using data visualization, company can control and analyze the exact value of
big data by accelerating the understanding value of the data, gaining deep insights and enabling the company
executives to make perfect and quick decisions on the advantageous business opportunities.

24.IMPORTANCE AND NEED OF BUSINESS ANALYTICS

#1. It is a procedure to make a sound commercial decision. It impacts the functioning of the whole
organization. Therefore, it can help in improving the profitability of the organization, boost its market share
and revenue, and provide a better return on investment.

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Businesses often fail because of poor financial management strategy or a lack of planning. For your business
success, developing and implementing financial and management systems is vital. It is important to keep
updating the original business plan. When reviewing your finances, It benefits to consider the following:

 Cash flow
 Working capital
 Cost base
 Borrowing
 Growth

#2. Helps in understanding the available primary and secondary data more comprehensively, which, in turn,
affects the operational efficiency of several departments in the organization.

#3. Helps in having a competitive edge. It incorporates the data available with several thought models to
enhance business decisions.

We should balance our ability to respond quickly with a clear strategy for our business. This will help you
decide whether the actions taken are appropriate or not. You should ask yourself if any internal factors is
holding the business back, and if so, what can you do about them? Various aspects like Premises, Facilities,
Information Technology, People/staff and skills matter.

#4. It converts available data into valuable information and helps in attaining the desired outcome and
positive results for the organization.

#5 .Conducting a customer and market analysis

From that marketing strategy you created when you started your business plan, you have already created a
plan that meets your objectives. When you are reviewing your business performance, you will need to assess
your customer data base and market positioning. You should keep updating your marketing plan as often as
your business plan. A business review offers you the opportunity to take a step back and review your plan to
look again at factors such as:

 changes
 new and emerging services
 changes in your customers needs
 other external factors such as the economy, new technology and so on.

#6 .Conducting a competitor analysis

Since you have been running your business for a while, you have a clearer idea of your competitors. As
gathering more information may cost time, money and effort, there are many benefits to knowing more about
what your competitors are up to. Any type of information about competitors will be really useful to you.
Questions to ask about your competitors should include who, when,where,what.

There is a stagnation of processes when an organization makes a wrong move. That wrong move could be a
delay in making decisions due to the lack of information or proposing an alien idea due to the availability of
fewer data. This is where the importance of business analytics is realized. Here is the list of the key advantages
of business analytics, if realized and understood Contact USwell, can make a huge difference to the business’
growth.

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NEED OF BUSINESS ANALYTICS

1. IT EMPOWERS COMPANIES TO MAKE AN IMPACT

Analyzing data allows understanding of both the business and the industry in which it operates, ensuring that
a company is able to make choices that help them grow.

More specifically, business analytics provides:

Clarity : Knowing where a company stands in the industry or a particular niche provides the company with the
needed clarity to develop effective strategies to position itself better in the future.

Competitiveness. If a company does not analyze the huge amounts of data it is exposed to, it might drown in
information, and stay behind the competition.

Timeliness. Clear insight into each aspect of the business empowers easy and fast decision-making that yields
positive results.

2. IT KEEPS THEM UP-TO-DATE IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT

For a company to remain competitive in the modern marketplace that requires constant change and growth, it
is crucial that it stays informed on the latest industry trends and best practices.

Not only does business analytics provide the needed knowledge for companies to survive in today’s constantly
changing business environment; it also makes room for growth and improvement, providing a detailed look
into various opportunities and challenges that companies face on a day-to-day basis.

3. IT ELEVATES OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Business analytics makes it possible for a company to pinpoint operational inefficiencies and respond to them
accordingly.

4. IT EMPOWERS THEM TO PLAN FOR GROWTH

Analytics gives businesses a forecasting ability, which makes the business more agile and prepared for possible
risks. As a result, the business is able to make important decisions with more confidence, knowing that it can
handle the risks and adjust the consequences.

5. IT BUILDS STRONGER CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

Analytics gives companies an insight into their customers’ behavior, needs, and pain points. It also makes it
possible for a company to understand the public opinion of its brand, to follow the results of various
marketing campaigns, and strategize how to create a better marketing strategy to nurture long and fruitful
relationships with its customers.

25. BUSINESS ANALYTICS IS RATHER A CULMINATION OF INFORMATION THAN AN ACTIVITY" EXPLAIN IN

THE CONTEXT OF DATA ANALYTICS?

Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming and modeling data with the goal of discovering
useful information, informing conclusion and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets
and approaches, encompassing diverse techniques under a variety of names, and is used in different business,

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science, and social science domains. In today's business world, data analysis plays a role in making decisions
more scientific and helping businesses operate more effectively.

Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleansing, transforming and modeling data with the goal of discovering
useful information, informing conclusion and supporting decision-making. Data analysis has multiple facets
and approaches, encompassing diverse techniques under a variety of names, and is used in different business,
science, and social science domains. In today's business world, data analysis plays a role in making decisions
more scientific and helping businesses operate more effectively.

As the workplace becomes more tech-driven and fast-paced, data analysis and the skills gained from data
analysis courses are going to play an increasingly important role in business.

Data analysis is an internal organisational function performed by Data Analysts that is more than merely
presenting numbers and figures to management. It requires a much more in-depth approach to recording,
analysing and dissecting data, and presenting the findings in an easily-digestible format.

With a data analysis course you’ll be able to provide a company with decision-making insight into the
following key areas:

 Predict customer trends and behaviours

 Analyse, interpret and deliver data in meaningful ways
 Increase business productivity
 Drive effective decision-making

responsibilities around analysing data help the business managers make informed decisions to drive the
company forward, improve efficiency, increase profits and achieve organisational goals.

To do this effectively, Data Analysts need to be able to:

 Understand business direction and objectives

 Explore the meaning behind the numbers and figures in data
 Analyse the causes of certain events based on data findings
 Present technical insights using easy-to-understand language
 Contribute to business decision-making by offering educated opinions

Big data is a huge part of data Analytics. The following are the importance of Big data

Big data analytics examines large amounts of data to uncover hidden patterns, correlations and other insights.
With today’s technology, it’s possible to analyze your data and get answers from it almost immediately – an
effort that’s slower and less efficient with more traditional business intelligence solutions

Big data analytics examines large amounts of data to uncover hidden patterns, correlations and other insights.
With today’s technology, it’s possible to analyze your data and get answers from it almost immediately – an
effort that’s slower and less efficient with more traditional business intelligence solutions.

History and evolution of big data analytics

The concept of big data has been around for years; most organizations now understand that if they capture all
the data that streams into their businesses, they can apply analytics and get significant value from it. But even
in the 1950s, decades before anyone uttered the term “big data,” businesses were using basic analytics
(essentially numbers in a spreadsheet that were manually examined) to uncover insights and trends.

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The new benefits that big data analytics brings to the table, however, are speed and efficiency. Whereas a few
years ago a business would have gathered information, run analytics and unearthed information that could be
used for future decisions, today that business can identify insights for immediate decisions. The ability to work
faster – and stay agile – gives organizations a competitive edge they didn’t have before.

The Importance of Big Data Analytics Graphic

Big data analytics helps organizations harness their data and use it to identify new opportunities. That, in turn,
leads to smarter business moves, more efficient operations, higher profits and happier customers. In his
report Big Data in Big Companies, IIA Director of Research Tom Davenport interviewed more than 50
businesses to understand how they used big data. He found they got value in the following ways:

Cost reduction. Big data technologies such as Hadoop and cloud-based analytics bring significant cost
advantages when it comes to storing large amounts of data – plus they can identify more efficient ways of
doing business.

Faster, better decision making. With the speed of Hadoop and in-memory analytics, combined with the ability
to analyze new sources of data, businesses are able to analyze information immediately – and make decisions
based on what they’ve learned.

New products and services. With the ability to gauge customer needs and satisfaction through analytics comes
the power to give customers what they want. Davenport points out that with big data analytics, more
companies are creating new products to meet customers’ needs

From these we can deduce that business analytics is a culmination of information rather than an Activity.

BUSINESS ANALYTICS