Win with Advanced Business Analytics: Creating Business Value from Your Data

ANALYTICS BECOMES MORE ACCESSIBLE TO THE NONANALYST

Another trend that will shape the future of analytics is that analytical techniques will become more accessible to the general business user, enabling nonanalysts to take an analytical approach to their business questions. As general knowledge of analytics spreads in the business world and software providers simplify the use of techniques such as data modeling, text analytics, Web analytics, and segmentation through automation, and the actual steps of the data analytics are more hidden from the user, it will enable people with little or no analytical background to run models and take business action from the results. We can already see instances of this occurring in certain analytical disciplines. For example, the rise of automated online survey tools during the last 10 years has led to people in all departments of the organizations creating and analyzing their own customer surveys. This is sometimes to the frustration of the marketing research experts, because survey questions are sometimes poorly worded, or statistically significant differences or margins of error not considered. However, we do believe this trend will be net positive for the influence of analytics, but we’re sure there will be pain along the way. For example, the famous quote “to the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail” has relevance. Untrained analysts are likely to apply analytical techniques improperly or in an inappropriate manner with incorrectly ...