Data and data science
Data and data science
The goal of business analytics is to turn data into actionable insights that
can inform strategy and drive improvements. This is achieved through a
combination of descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive
analytics, which provide different levels of insight and support different
types of decision making.
-Descriptive analytics provides a historical perspective on business
performance and focuses on summarizing and describing past data.
-Diagnostic analytics focuses on identifying root causes of performance
issues.
-Predictive analytics uses historical data and statistical models to make
predictions about future performance.
-Prescriptive analytics provides recommendations for decision-makers to
optimize future outcomes.
Business analytics tools and technologies
include
data warehousing,
data mining,
machine learning, and
visualization tools, among others.
The use of these tools and techniques enables organizations to collect,
process, and analyze large amounts of data, providing insights that would be
difficult to extract manually.
Overall, business analytics is a crucial tool for organizations looking to
make data-driven decisions, optimize performance, and stay ahead in a
highly competitive business environment.
In conclusion, business analytics is a critical tool for modern organizations
that enables them to make informed decisions, improve operations, and stay
competitive in a rapidly changing business environment.
While it requires a combination of technical expertise and communication
skills, the benefits it brings to organizations make it a valuable investment.
While it requires a combination of technical expertise and communication
skills, the benefits it brings to organizations make it a valuable investment.
Operations Optimization: Using analytics to optimize business
processes and operations, and to improve efficiency, productivity, and
customer satisfaction.
Customer Behavior Analysis: Understanding customer preferences,
needs, and purchase patterns to inform business decisions and improve
customer experience.
Sales and Marketing Analysis: Evaluating the effectiveness of sales
and marketing strategies, and determining opportunities for
improvement. Supply Chain Optimization: Optimizing supply chain
operations, such as inventory management, logistics, and transportation.
Financial Analysis and Reporting: Analyzing financial data to support
budgeting, forecasting, and decision-making.
Human Resource Management and Analysis: Examining HR data to
improve workforce planning, talent management, and employee
satisfaction.
Operations and Process Improvement: Identifying and improving
inefficiencies in business processes to increase efficiency and
productivity.
Business Analytics Success Stories
Capital One: Capital One uses data analytics to detect fraud and manage
risk. The company's algorithms analyze customer data to identify
unusual or suspicious behavior and alert the relevant departments.
Barclays: The bank uses data analytics to detect fraud, manage risk and
improve customer experience.
Procter & Gamble: The consumer goods company uses data analytics to
optimize pricing, improve supply chain and inform marketing strategies.
Sports teams: Teams in the NFL, NBA and MLB use data analytics to
optimize player performance, inform game strategy and improve fan
engagement.
These examples show how businesses can use data analytics to drive
efficiency, improve customer experiences, and make informed decisions.
Netflix
Netflix uses business analytics in several ways:
Content analysis: They analyze data to determine which content to
produce and license, including genre, budget, and target audience.
Amazon
Uber
Uber uses business analytics in several ways:
Demand forecasting: To predict demand for rides and optimize pricing
and driver incentives.
Customer segmentation: To better understand and target different
customer segments.
Driver performance evaluation: To measure driver performance and
identify areas for improvement.
Route optimization: To determine the best routes for drivers and
passengers, reducing travel time and costs.
Fraud detection: To identify and prevent fraudulent activities, such as
fake rides and fake drivers.
Marketing and promotions: To measure the effectiveness of marketing
campaigns and promotional offers.
Market expansion: To analyze new markets and determine the viability
of expanding into new cities and regions.
Google
Google uses business analytics in various ways:
Data-driven decision making: Google collects and analyzes massive
amounts of data to inform its decisions and strategies.
Customer behavior analysis: Google analyzes user data to understand
customer behavior and preferences, which helps with product
development and marketing strategies.
Financial analysis: Google uses business analytics to track and forecast
its financial performance.
Ad campaign optimization: Google uses analytics to measure the
effectiveness of its advertising campaigns and adjust them accordingly.
Market research: Google analyzes market trends and competitor activity
to inform its business strategies.
History of the term “Business Analytics”
Scietific Management
F W Taylor
Operation Research
O George B Dantzig
What Is Data Science?
Data science is the domain of study that deals with vast volumes of data using
modern tools and techniques, including essential data science skills, to find
unseen patterns, derive meaningful information, and make business decisions.
Data science uses complex machine learning algorithms to build predictive
models. The data used for analysis can come from many different sources and
presented in various formats.
The Data Science Lifecycle
Now that you know what is data science, next up let us focus on the data
science lifecycle. Data science’s lifecycle consists of five distinct stages, each
with its own tasks:
1. Capture: Data Acquisition, Data Entry, Signal Reception, Data Extraction.
This stage involves gathering raw structured and unstructured data.
2. Maintain: Data Warehousing, Data Cleansing, Data Staging, Data
Processing, Data Architecture. This stage covers taking the raw data and
putting it in a form that can be used.
3. Process: Data Mining, Clustering/Classification, Data Modeling, Data
Summarization. Data scientists take the prepared data and examine its
patterns, ranges, and biases to determine how useful it will be in
predictive analysis.
4. Analyze: Exploratory/Confirmatory, Predictive Analysis, Regression,
Text Mining, Qualitative Analysis. Here is the real meat of the lifecycle.
This stage involves performing the various analysis on the data.
5. Communicate: Data Reporting, Data Visualization, Business Intelligence,
Decision Making. In this final step, analysts prepare the analyses in easily
readable forms such as charts, graphs, and reports.
1. Healthcare
2. Gaming
Video and computer games are now being created with the help of data science
and that has taken the gaming experience to the next level.
3. Image Recognition
Identifying patterns is one of the most commonly known applications of data
science. in images and detecting objects in an image is one of the most popular
data science applications.
4. Recommendation Systems
5. Logistics
6. Fraud Detection
Fraud detection comes the next in the list of applications of data science.
Banking and financial institutions use data science and related algorithms to
detect fraudulent transactions.
7. Internet Search
Internet comes the next in the list of applications of data science. When we
think of search, we immediately think of Google. Right? However, there are
other search engines, such as Yahoo, Duckduckgo, Bing, AOL, Ask, and others,
that employ data science algorithms to offer the best results for our searched
query in a matter of seconds. Given that Google handles more than 20 petabytes
of data per day. Google would not be the 'Google' we know today if data
science did not exist.
8. Speech recognition
9. Targeted Advertising
If you thought Search was the most essential data science use, consider this: the
whole digital marketing spectrum. From display banners on various websites to
digital billboards at airports, data science algorithms are utilised to identify
almost anything. This is why digital advertisements have a far higher CTR
(Call-Through Rate) than traditional marketing. They can be customised based
on a user's prior behaviour. That is why you may see adverts for Data Science
Training Programs while another person sees an advertisement for clothes in the
same region at the same time.
Next up in the data science and its applications list comes route planning. As a
result of data science, it is easier to predict flight delays for the airline industry,
which is helping it grow. It also helps to determine whether to land immediately
at the destination or to make a stop in between, such as a flight from Delhi to
the United States of America or to stop in between and then arrive at the
destination.
Last but not least, the final data science applications appear to be the most
fascinating in the future. Yes, we are discussing something other
than augmented reality. Do you realise there's a fascinating relationship between
data science and virtual reality? A virtual reality headset incorporates computer
expertise, algorithms, and data to create the greatest viewing experience
possible. The popular game Pokemon GO is a minor step in that direction. The
ability to wander about and look at Pokemon on walls, streets, and other non-
existent surfaces. The makers of this game chose the locations of the Pokemon
and gyms using data from Ingress, the previous app from the same business.
Descriptive Analytics
Descriptive analytics looks at data and analyze past event for insight as to how
to approach future events. It looks at past performance and understands the
performance by mining historical data to understand the cause of success or
failure in the past. Almost all management reporting such as sales, marketing,
operations, and finance uses this type of analysis.
The descriptive model quantifies relationships in data in a way that is often used
to classify customers or prospects into groups. Unlike a predictive model that
focuses on predicting the behavior of a single customer, Descriptive analytics
identifies many different relationships between customer and product.
Common examples of Descriptive analytics are company reports that provide
historic reviews like:
Data Queries
Reports
Descriptive Statistics
Data dashboard
Diagnostic Analytics
In this analysis, we generally use historical data over other data to answer any
question or for the solution of any problem. We try to find any dependency and
pattern in the historical data of the particular problem.
For example, companies go for this analysis because it gives a great insight into
a problem, and they also keep detailed information about their disposal
otherwise data collection may turn out individual for every problem and it will
be very time-consuming. Common techniques used for Diagnostic Analytics
are:
Data discovery
Data mining
Correlations
Predictive Analytics
Predictive analytics turn the data into valuable, actionable information.
predictive analytics uses data to determine the probable outcome of an event or
a likelihood of a situation occurring. Predictive analytics holds a variety of
statistical techniques from modeling, mining , and machine learning , data game
theory that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about a
future event. Techniques that are used for predictive analytics are:
Linear Regression
Time Series Analysis and Forecasting
Data Mining
Basic Cornerstones of Predictive Analytics
Predictive modeling
Decision Analysis and optimization
Transaction profiling
Prescriptive Analytics
Prescriptive Analytics automatically synthesize big data, mathematical science,
business rule, and machine learning to make a prediction and then suggests a
decision option to take advantage of the prediction. Prescriptive analytics goes
beyond predicting future outcomes by also suggesting action benefits from the
predictions and showing the decision maker the implication of each decision
option. Prescriptive Analytics not only anticipates what will happen and when to
happen but also why it will happen. Further, Prescriptive Analytics can suggest
decision options on how to take advantage of a future opportunity or mitigate a
future risk and illustrate the implication of each decision option.
For example, Prescriptive Analytics can benefit healthcare strategic planning
by using analytics to leverage operational and usage data combined with data of
external factors such as economic data, population demography, etc.