What is Business Analytics?

What is Business Analytics?

Future of Business Analytics?  

You must be thinking about these questions when you hear about – “MBA in Business Analytics” right? 

First of all, let’s understand what is Business Analytics? – It is the practice of using this data analysis to understand and drive business strategy and performance.  The exponential growth in data is a key driver of the power of business analytics-related changes that are sweeping businesses today.

Here are some stats from Taxila Business School that show how Business Analytics is important for career-making? Taxila makes Business Analytics a compulsory specialization that you can choose with any other two specializations. This is how Taxila’s students take advantage of Triple specialization.

This digital technology-driven change is mostly massive and disruptive. However, it impacts different industries and businesses differently. Some businesses have to radically transform the way they plan their supply chains to collaborate with their vendor partners and reach their customers if they have to stay in business. Business decision-makers are increasingly investing time, effort and money to use business analytics to make more timely, comprehensive, and insightful business decisions.

The pre-requisite skills required for a Business Analytics specialization are comfort with mathematics and statistics. Beyond that, it is more about love for numbers and an analytical, learning and hard-working mindset.  There are a good number of institutions that provide short-term courses but very few institutions that integrate Business Analytics in their MBA specialization streams. A few of them coming to mind are IIMA, IIMB, Great Lakes, NMIMS, KIIT, Taxila and a few more.

You might want to read:- Top Colleges for MBA in Business Analytics

Business Analytics in MBA Curriculum

You’ll get hands-on practice using the most up-to-date business analytics tools, complete case studies, and projects, some of which may involve real-world data. Business analytics course is generally taught by professors with field experience, who can deliver real-world insights and advice. The course for an MBA/PGDM in business analytics typically takes two years to complete on a full-time basis. Those students who are looking to start a new career in Business Analytics or working people change professions are good candidates for full-time study.

• Spreadsheet Modelling
• Accounting Analytics
• Marketing Analytics
• Financial Analytics
• Business Statistics
• Applied Regression
• Principles of Management Science
• Data Mining
• Forecasting and Modelling
• Business Analytics Strategy

Look around and you will witness:

• A simple verbal question to Alexa or Siri is giving us a close to correct answer to almost every question we have in mind.
• Google has redefined the way we search for knowledge.
• Gmail, Yahoo & WhatsApp have redefined the way we communicate.
• A health app is suggesting exercises and medicines based on your health conditions.
• Google Maps shows us the shortest & also the least congested route to a destination.
• You get leads to nearby discounted hotels & restaurants based on your spending preferences as you visit a tourist city.
• The Modern Retail Stores are keeping items of joint buying together for easy pickups and also plan effective promotions/offers based on seasons and time of the month.
• Amazon and Flipkart are throwing shopping choices that you were never aware of.  Shopping at ease, with a click and easy returns is changing the way the consumer is buying.
• Your mobile has applications that do a range of jobs for you right from editing your files to bank transactions to shopping to listening to any song of any genre.
• Anything that you search on the internet triggers personalized advertisement across Google, Facebook, Instagram platforms for more informed consumer choices.
• The ease with which we book rail tickets, airline tickets, cabs, movie tickets, talk shows, sports events was unfathomable just a few years back.

The power behind everything above is digital communication technology and data analytics powered by communication (mobile) and computing devices (computer/laptops etc.) and communication (internet, wireless etc.).  You can now not only understand the past better but can also predict better. Let’s discuss How Business Analytics helping humans and the future of Business Analytics…

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Come to think of it how huge this leap is that gives you the capability to predict with more conviction on future events.  You can predict the odds of your favourite IPL team Mumbai Indians winning the IPL once again. Your past performance at exercises and mock tests would let you know which subjects you are weak at and based on your current preparations, what could be your CAT exam performance. Also,  You can predict how much rain is expected in the coming monsoon season or even would it rain in the afternoon today.  You can be fairly sure now about how long can you live without any heart trouble given your current heart condition and living habits. You are almost sure about the weather forecast at a hill station that you are visiting the next day.  The list is endless.

Data at the heart of Business Analytics.

It is evident that Data is at the heart of business analytics. It is not as if data was not being collected before the current technology systems and tools came into play. However, such data remained in registers, memories or at best in standalone computer systems without getting used analysed. Today, data analytics and its use for business decision-making are increasingly becoming a source of competitive advantage as more and more technology and analytical tools from hardware to software to data collection to storage, management, manipulation, aggregation, analysis and integration are now available. Further, there is increasing adeptness and comfort of employees, customers and business partners in sharing thoughts and ideas in virtual spaces. Consequently, harnessing collective intelligence is playing an important role in generating new ideas, solving problems, disaggregating and distributing work in new and innovative ways, and making better, more informed decisions about the future.

The amount of data that is generated in the business world is doubling every year. 90% of today’s data was generated in the last two years.  Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data is being generated every day.  Data can take many forms like voice, video, image, text, numbers etc. There are sensors that catch data almost everywhere viz the Alexa- Siri, Google assistant; the CCTVs, Cameras & Audio equipments; the communication devices like TV, Radio, Phones, Mobiles; the E-Commerce buying & transactions; E-banking transactions; your emails, internet surfing & social media activities on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. There are smartwatches, smart machines, smart homes, smart lights, smart beds, smart cars, and smart offices.  Businesses and humanity are putting every possible effort to convert this data into intelligence for better decision-making.

Businesses can generate even greater value

Businesses stand to gain much more because they can organize efforts around the collection of data and its analysis as a part of their daily businesses and utilize the results at scale to justify the cost. The CXOs increasingly do not have the luxury to make decisions on gut and then depend on luck & competition to prove it right.  A lot is being done in data analytics already to understand the past performance, make informed decisions and predict the consequences of those decisions better. Banks are determining the creditworthiness & decide on the amount of loan that can be given to a customer based on their credit scores and spending profiles. Retail stores are able to predict customer footfalls they would expect oncoming specific days and specific time frames.

The manufacturing industry can accurately predict the wear & tear and maintenance requirements of machines to avoid breakdowns.  FMCG companies can make better assumptions on product segment-wise market growth rates in order to plan any marketing campaign in specific areas. They can even predict whether the competitor will match prices or promotions based on their past behavior. Companies are able to precisely reach out to the most likely customer through targeted advertisements on social media. The list is again endless and data analytics is being used in every function from production to marketing to finance to human resources. It is becoming an indispensable tool for businesses to better understand their business partners, competitors and customers.

The future of Business Analytics

There is thus no doubt that Business Analytics is an incredibly powerful decision-making tool driving people and performance across organizations. Future is even more exciting as predicted by Harvard University when it says it is the most attractive profession while Gartner Research predicts it to be the most important technology trend in the coming decades. The ability of understanding data, building models, using tools, deciphering results and taking informed decisions has become a personal differentiator for people seeking jobs. Given the impact of business analytics on decision-making in every functional domain, there is a huge demand for this skill if it comes with functional domain knowledge. And there lies the value of an MBA with a combined specialization in the functional domain as well as business analytics.  Glassdoor analysis across more than 13000 starting salaries of data analysts & business analysts indicates a high starting salary of more than 7 Lakhs INR.  Truly, Business Analytics specialization is a gateway to a great career and a clear differentiator on CVs and Profiles.

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