Leveraging business analytics tools gives you the insights you need to improve strategic decision-making.
In this guide, we’ll explore business analytics types and tools and how your business can benefit from them.
What is business analytics?
Business analytics uses technology to collect, process and analyse large data sets to uncover meaningful business insights.
Why is business analytics important?
Business analytics is important to organisations of all sizes. It can help you uncover patterns and opportunities to guide your business strategy. The insights you gain from your data may help you stay competitive, improve efficiency and drive growth.
How can business analytics be used?
Business analytics has a range of use cases, including:
Measuring marketing campaign success
Measuring marketing campaigns with business analytics lets you track success in real time and refine strategies as you go. The result is more targeted, more impactful campaigns and improving impact.
Optimising sales funnels
You can optimise sales funnels by analysing customer data to identify where they drop off in your sales process. These insights let you improve each funnel stage, from lead generation to conversion. Business analytics can also reveal which customers are most likely to convert and what factors influence their purchasing decisions.
Improving financial planning
Business analytics can also improve financial planning. By analysing historical financial data, market trends and economic indicators, you may be able to set budgets and forecasts more accurately.
Supply chain optimisation
You can optimise supply chains by analysing data from various points in the supply chain. This may highlight inefficiencies and disruptions. You can also use business analytics to forecast demand, optimise inventory levels and improve logistics planning.
Tip: MYOB Acumatica gives you a 360-view of your organisation from a customisable dashboard and a full suite of automated and configurable reports. This enhanced visibility is key to optimising performance across your business.
Types of business analytics
The types of business analytics most commonly used are:
Descriptive analytics: understand the past
Descriptive analytics uses historical data to identify trends, measure performance against targets and prepare data for deeper analysis. Set and track key performance indicators (KPIs) to understand how your business has responded to different factors over time.
Predictive analytics: forecast the future
Predictive analytics uses historical data trends to forecast future outcomes. Using methods such as data mining and statistical modelling, businesses can anticipate likely events and customer behaviour. Predictive analytics help with managing customer experiences, improving efficiency, preventing fraud and minimising risk.
Diagnostic analytics: understand why
Diagnostic analytics help you understand why something succeeded or failed. By examining historical data, you may be able to uncover the root causes to make more informed decisions.
Prescriptive analytics: recommend action
Prescriptive analytics suggests actions to take advantage of future opportunities or avoid risks. Using complex algorithms, machine learning and computational modelling techniques, it evaluates multiple scenarios to recommend the best course of action.
What are the benefits of business analytics?
The benefits of business analytics include:
Data-driven decision making
Business analytics allows you to make data-driven decisions. With concrete insights into market trends, customer behaviour and operational performance, you can take the guesswork out of decision-making.
Improved efficiency
Business analytics can improve efficiency. By pinpointing areas where time and resources are wasted, you can improve workflows, reduce costs and increase productivity.
Better customer satisfaction
Improve customer satisfaction by identifying pain points and implementing targeted solutions. Business analytics provides you with the data insights you need to personalise offerings, anticipate customer needs, refine marketing strategies, improve customer support and more.
Proactive risk management
Proactively manage risk by spotting potential threats before they materialise. Business analytics lets you review business data alongside market trends, helping you anticipate and prepare for challenges.
Optimised marketing and sales channels
Business analytics can give you the insights you need to optimise marketing and sales channels. When you understand which yield the best results, you can improve your return on investment for your sales and marketing activities.
Competitive advantage
Business analytics can help you claim a competitive advantage in several ways. For example, you can use your data to adapt to market trends, improve operational inefficiencies, change your pricing or improve customer experiences.
How to choose a business analytics tool
The business analytics software you choose should integrate with your business management software. This ensures that you’re getting insights from comprehensive, real-time data.
Tip: MYOB Acumatica offers in-built BI and reporting tools that can turn your business data into graphs, charts and reports. You can customise your dashboard to see the data you want at a glance. For deeper insights, you can also connect your MYOB Acumatica platform to a best-in-class business analytics tool from our App Marketplace.
Industries using business analytics to improve efficiency
Industries using business analytics to improve efficiency include:
Retail
Retailers use business analytics to improve their overall efficiency. By analysing customer data, they can personalise marketing efforts, optimise pricing strategies and improve inventory management. Predicting what customers want helps stores stock the right products at the right time. This saves money, reduces waste and improves the customer experience.
Healthcare
The healthcare industry can use BI and reporting tools to predict admission rates, optimise staffing levels and reduce wait times. It can also help them improve their supplier management for medical supplies and equipment.
Manufacturing
Manufacturers can use BI and reporting tools to increase production efficiency, MRO inventory and supply chain management. They do this by analysing data to predict equipment maintenance requirements and identify bottlenecks.
Finance
Finance leaders rely on business analytics to improve decision-making and risk management. By analysing financial data, they can develop more accurate financial models, budgets and forecasts. Business analytics can also help with fraud detection, credit risk assessment and portfolio optimisation.
Transportation and Logistics
Transportation and logistics organisations can use business analytics to optimise routes, improve fleet management and enhance supply chain efficiency. By analysing data from GPS tracking, these businesses may be able to reduce fuel consumption and delivery times. Analytics can also help forecast demand, optimise warehouse operations and improve inventory management.
Business analytics vs business intelligence
Business analytics and business intelligence are related but distinct concepts. Business intelligence focuses on analysing data to understand past performance and current trends. Business analytics uses advanced statistical techniques and predictive modelling to forecast future trends and guide decision-making. While business intelligence looks at what happened, business analytics explores why it happened and what might happen next, providing deeper insights for strategic planning.
Business analytics FAQs
What is the difference between business analytics and data science?
The difference between business analytics and data science is in their scope and approach. Business analytics uses data to solve specific business problems and improve organisational decision-making. Data science is a broader field that involves advanced statistical techniques, machine learning and algorithm development.
What are the challenges of business analytics?
Business analytics challenges can come from poor data quality, a lack of software integration and getting stakeholder buy-in.
What is the difference between business analytics and business analysis?
The difference between business analytics and business analysis is in their purpose. Business analytics uses data and statistical methods to offer insight, drive decision-making and find solutions to problems. While both use data, business analytics is more quantitative and focused on statistical modelling, while business analysis is more qualitative and emphasises process improvement.
Harness the potential of data analytics
In any business, it’s always better to make decisions based on data not guesswork. That’s where business analytics can help. Armed with actionable insights, you’ll improve strategic decision-making, spot opportunities and avoid setbacks.
The BI and reporting tools built into MYOB Acumatica give you a big-picture view of your organisation. With MYOB, you can visualise key metrics in your customisable dashboard. If you need even more analytic power, you can integrate your cloud ERP with a business analytics tool from our App Marketplace.
Ready to unlock deep insights built from real-time, accurate data? Get in touch with an expert.
Disclaimer: Information provided in this article is of a general nature and does not consider your personal situation. It does not constitute legal, financial, or other professional advice and should not be relied upon as a statement of law, policy or advice. You should consider whether this information is appropriate to your needs and, if necessary, seek independent advice. This information is only accurate at the time of publication. Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of the information contained on this webpage, MYOB disclaims, to the extent permitted by law, all liability for the information contained on this webpage or any loss or damage suffered by any person directly or indirectly through relying on this information.