Business Analytics for Managers, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9Business Analytics in the Future

Analytics will be everywhere, all the time.

Business analytics (BA) is not just moving fast; it's also in the process of developing from conventional BA to pervasive analytics, which equips everyone in the organization and in the private sphere at all levels with real‐time analyses, alerts, and feedback mechanisms. It's a paradigm shift with potentially huge advantages and far‐reaching cultural significance—and it's happening already.

Instead of just measuring business results after they've been achieved, which is the primary role of BA today, the next generation of pervasive BA will advise and drive the business forward with an arsenal of analyses and tools for real‐time decision making. These will be delivered with a view to improving earning power and efficiency, and they will be delivered to people in all corners of the organization and even outside it.

Pervasive business analytics can be explained as omnipresent information technology (IT). And that means that IT will circle, inform, and advise everyone at all times, wherever people are. And we won't always realize when it's happening.

One example is General Motors' OnStar system. In this package, the typical GPS navigation system for cars is extended with an information and convenience service in a “pervasive” way. The customer service center at General Motors knows the real‐time location of the car and can perform cross‐reference searches in an underlying database to interesting ...