Embedded Analytics

Chapter 10. Analytics as a Line of Business

We began this book with a simple claim: every business today is a data business. From there, it was a short step to say that every business needs to be an analytic business to get the best from its data. For many companies, this need to be analytical represents a challenge. They may not have the infrastructure or the skills to define and build the analytics they need. They may not have the budget and resources, or even if they do, they may not be able to prioritize data analysis over other strategic plans.

For software vendors, this unmet demand is a significant commercial prospect. You are already building applications or services that your customers need: you can enhance your range of products by adding analytics as a feature, or even developing specialized analytics products that can stand on their own.

This potential is particularly potent for SaaS vendors. Buyers are used to SaaS products offering a relatively low cost, simple adoption, and continuously released updates. In this demanding and competitive environment, where is your additional value to come from?

We believe one of the clearest answers is to be found in the data you already manage. In this chapter, we will look beyond building analytics as a feature to see how you can deliver analytics as a product and therefore as a potential line of business.

Data as an Asset

We are probably all familiar with the phrase, data is an asset. In fact, it’s a cliché of modern data management ...