Introduction: The New World of Enterprise Analytics

Thomas H. Davenport

The Rise of Analytics

Analytics aren’t new—I’ve found references to corporate analytical groups as far back as 1954—but they seem to be more important to business and organizational life than ever before. Analytical approaches to decision-making and management are on the rise because of several factors:

• The dramatic increase in the amounts of data to analyze from various business information systems

• Powerful and inexpensive computers and software that can analyze all this data

• The movement of quantitatively trained managers into positions of responsibility within organizations

• The need to differentiate products and offers, optimize prices and inventories, and understand ...

Get The Complete Guide to Business Analytics (Collection) now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.