Introduction to Business Analytics

Dr. Hokey Min

Jan 30, 2017
https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2494418

1.1 The Origin and Evolution of Business Analytics

In the era of knowledge economy, getting the right information to decision makers at the right
time is critical to their business success. One such attempt includes the growing use of business
analytics. Generally speaking, business analytics refers to a broad use of various quantitative
techniques such as statistics, data mining, optimization tools, and simulation supported by the
query and reporting mechanism to assist decision makers in making more informed decisions
within a closed-loop framework seeking continuous process improvement through monitoring
and learning. Business analytics also helps the decision maker predict the future business
activities based on the analysis of historical patterns of past business activities. For example,
your nearby grocery chain, such as Kroger, might frequently issue discount coupons tailored for
each customer based on his past shopping patterns. This practice encourages the customer to
consider buying the discounted but favorite items repeatedly, while building customer loyalty.
This practice is possible, since a smart use of business analytics allows the grocery store to figure
out which items are likely to be purchased by which customer in his next grocery shopping trip.
Likewise, application potentials of business analytics are enormous given the abundant data
available from the digital and mobile data sources.

Although business analytics has been rapidly gaining popularity among practitioners and
academicians alike in the recent past, its conceptual foundation has existed for centuries. One of
the first forms of business analytics may be statistics whose uses can be traced back at least to
the biblical times in ancient Egypt, Babylon, and Rome. Regardless of historical facts, its
longevity may be attributed to its usefulness for helping the policy maker (including ancient
rulers or kings) make a better decision. In other words, whatever the form of business analytics
may be, it would help us answer the following fundamental questions critical for decision
making:

1. What happened?

What did the data tell us?

2. Why did a certain event take place?
  Why did it happen?
 What are the sources of problems?
3. Will the same event take place?

Will the problem recur?

Are there any noticeable patterns of the problem?
4. What will happen if we change what we used to do?

How can we deal with the recurring problem?

What is the value the change will bring?
5. How can we ensure that our changed practices actually work?

 Is there scientific evidence indicating the validity and usefulness of our changed
practices?

By answering the preceding questions, business analytics aims to accomplish these various
goals:

 Gaining insights into business practices and customer behaviors: Business analytics is
designed to transform unstructured, nonstandardized big data originated from multiple
sources into meaningful information helpful for a better business decision.
 Improving predictability: By deriving insights into customer behavioral patterns and market
trends, business analytics can improve the organization’s ability to make demand forecast
more accurately.
 Identifying risk: With growing complexity and uncertainty resulting from the globalization
of business activities, many organizations encounter the daunting tasks of managing risk.
Risk cannot be managed without identifying it and then preparing for it. Business analytics
can function as an early warning system for detecting the signs or symptoms of potential
troubles by dissecting the business patterns (e.g., shrinking market share, a higher rate of
customer defection, declining stock price).
 Improving the effectiveness of communication: With the query and reporting mechanism of
business analytics, it can not only speed up the reporting procedures, but also provide user-
friendly reports including “what-if” scenarios. Such reports can be a valuable
communication tool among the decision makers and thus would help the management team
make more timely and accurate business decisions.
 Enhancing operating efficiency: By aiding the decision maker in understanding the way
business works and where the greatest business opportunities are, business analytics can
decrease the chances of making poor investment decisions and misallocating the company’s
resources and thus would help improve the company’s operating efficiency.

1.2 Developing Analytical Thinking

Developing analytical thinking is the first step of business analytics, because it will determine
which data should be gathered, where these data should be acquired, how these data should be
analyzed to extract meaningful information, and how such information can be exploited to
address ongoing business issues. Analytical thinking, however, should not be confused with
critical thinking. Table 1.1 summarizes the subtle differences between analytical and critical
thinking.

Table 1.1 Analytical and Critical Thinking

Analytical Thinking Critical Thinking

Goal Seek answers/solutions for ongoing Determine what is right or

issues wrong

The Use of Facts To support your conclusions To form your own opinions and
beliefs

Style of Thinking Streamlined problem-solving approach Opinion-based approach with

by the step-by-step breakdown of the constant reasoning and
cause-and-effect relationships of questioning
events/datasets

Mind-sets Organized system of thoughts Open-minded

Interpretation of Information is useful for understanding No information is considered

Information certain events and explaining valid, true, applicable, and
patterns/trends; thus, it helps gain accurate automatically without
insights into problems to be solved. clear evidence.

Key Tools Mind-maps, flow diagrams, Brainstorming sessions, open

mathematical tools forums for arguments

Given the importance of analytical thinking to the successful application of business analytics,
the development of analytical thinking (or nurturing analytical thinking skills) should precede the
adoption of business analytics. The following summarizes ways to develop analytical thinking in
a systematic manner:

1. Fact-finding and checking through thought experiments: Thought experiments involve

hypothesizing “what-if” scenarios in the imaginary world and allow us to see the outcome
(what will happen) if we select a certain decision. If the repeated experiments result in the
same outcome, the pattern emerging from those experiments can be a basis for facts. Also,
we can map out the individual outcome resulting from each choice of the decision.
2. Raising the correct line of reasoning for what you read, learned, and wrote in the
past: Unless we verify the validity of information sources (e.g., books, published articles,
digital media), we can be sold on logical fallacies and may end up making wrong decisions.
To obviate such mistakes, we should be aware of common logical fallacies based on the
faulty reasoning. For example, a premise based on the inverse reasoning stating “If you
do not reduce product price, it will not affect product value and thus will not hurt the
potential sales of that product” can lead to no business action when the product at the
current price is not selling well in the market. Instead, we should have developed the proper
reasoning stating “If you reduce product price, it will improve product value for potential
customers and thus increase its sales.” Other potential sources of logical fallacies may
include the hasty generalization of one-time instance or limited anecdotal incidents, the
unconditional belief in the high authority’s opinions, and the false association (e.g., a turtle
brings good luck to the individual who owns it as a pet, although it is more likely to contain
deadly salmonella bacteria than other pets).
3. Building a habit of thinking without preconceived notions or biases: To avoid bias traps,
one should bring various perspectives (viewpoints) in a broad spectrum and figure out what
we are taking for granted. The thought process originating from many different angles will
lower the chance of getting trapped in one flat point of view reflecting one’s bias or partial
facts.
4. Structural thinking: Analytical thinking should guide us to develop meaningful inferences
out of gathered data. However, it would be hard for us to make meaningful inferences and
draw conclusions without structured, step-by-step thought processes. These processes may
include the following steps:
a. Setting purposes of solving the given problems emanating from particular events,
practices, and behaviors.
b. Raising questions about the nature of the given problems.
c. Gathering data and facts associated with the observed problems.
d. Utilizing well-established concepts, theories, axioms, laws, principles, and models to
dissect data and extract meaningful information.
e. Making inferences and drawing conclusions under proper assumptions.
f. Understanding and generating implications of new problem solutions found from
inferences and conclusions.

1.3 Operationalizing Big Data from Global Perspectives

As the world gets closely connected through digital media and machine-to-machine (MTM)
technology with accelerated globalization, the volume of data that is being generated today is
astronomical. In 2012 alone, an estimated 2.5 zettabytes of data were generated across the world,
and the volume of business data across the world is expected to reach nearly 45 zettabytes by
2020 (A.T. Kearney 2013). At this pace, the world will be inundated with data every day at the
rate of an additional 2.5 quintillion bytes of data per day (IBM 2012). This deluge of data or
information overload creates unique managerial challenges that today’s business executives
rarely faced in the past. What may not be keeping pace with the explosive growth of data volume
is the absence of clear business strategies that can handle big data, and the lack of education and
training programs for managing big data, not to mention adequate information infrastructure.
Another challenge includes a difficulty in sorting, determining, and keeping data that business
executives can trust among a sheer volume of raw data. So the fundamental question that we are
raising is how to deal with this onslaught of data, while figuring out which business value to be
extracted from this big data. In other words, how do we make big data a competitive
differentiator for the organization? To answer this fundamental question, we may need to take
the following steps:

1. Identify: Before leveraging big data as a driver of business value, we need to first identify
who will be using the data. The identification of target users will allow us to determine
which type of data is worthy of consideration for collection and storage. Afterward, we need
to identify where the data is coming from, who is creating those data, and where the content
lives.
2. Filter: Depending on the purpose of data usage, we need to determine which data is relevant
for analysis and which data should be thrown out. This step will prevent the decision maker
from using outdated and irrelevant (misleading) data.
3. Analyze: After a manageable number of datasets are created, the next step to take is to
determine which information should be extracted from the given datasets to solve particular
decision problems encountered by the business executive. For instance, if you are interested
in finding the optimal routes for package delivery couriers, you need to extract information
about the costs/distances associated with each route option and capacity limits of each
available courier. The type of information that you are looking for will dictate the choice of
various data analysis tools such as descriptive, exploratory, inferential, predictive, causal,
and mechanistic analysis. According to Smith (2013), descriptive analysis focuses on the
quantitative summary of data features (e.g., mean, median, standard deviation, frequency,
cumulative percentage). Exploratory analysis is intended to find previously unknown
relationships. Inferential analysis is designed to test theories about the nature of the world
in general (or some part of it) based on samples of “subjects” taken from the world (or some
part of it). Predicative analysis is intended to make predictions about future events using
current facts and historical trends. Causal analysis aims to find out what happens to one
variable when another variable is changed. Mechanistic analysis helps us understand how
changes in certain variables can lead to transformations in other variables through iterative
experiments.
 4. Disseminate: After insightful information is extracted from data analysis, this information
should be transmitted to the right person at the right location at the right time. Especially for
confidential or proprietary information, information security should be ensured to avoid
information breaches.
5. Update: To avoid a wrong decision stemming from outdated information, we should
constantly keep data updated and monitored for veracity.

Following a closed loop of deriving value from big data and then gaining insights into business
decision problems, we should not overlook the process of operationalizing big data by putting
those insights gleaned from big data into use or practice in a form of repeatedly usable solutions.
One way of facilitating that process is to develop visual reporting mechanisms (e.g., summary
reports, graphical charts, tables, dashboards) that can be easily shared by the team of decision
makers and stakeholders without technical expertise. More important, since intelligent insights
obtained from big data analysis may not be shared throughout the organization, we need to first
break visible or invisible silos that disconnect some organizational units partially or wholly from
the rest of their organization.

1.4 Extracting Useful Information from Big Data

The ever-growing digital universe, along with multimedia social platforms, has flooded today’s
business world with an overwhelming amount of data. To make it worse, approximately 80% of
data held by an organization is known to be unstructured and unrelated to its other data (Godika
2015). These data are often composed of data from customer calls, e-mails (including
unsolicited), blogs, video clips, and social media feeds. The question is, How we will make sense
of this abundant unstructured data and exploit it as a competitive differentiator? To answer this
question, there are several steps that we can take:

1. Data screening: Some data were collected and stored by the company not necessarily
because they would be useful, but because they had to be captured and kept by government
or company mandates. For example, we are required by the healthcare law to retain patient
data for 7 years for adults and 25 years for children. Some portions of those data may be
useful for tracking the patient’s health history and immunization records, but others, such as
the height or weight of patients at a certain point of their lives, may not present many clues
for their current health conditions. As such, data screening should begin with the
determination of relevancy of stored data to intended data usage (e.g., medical diagnosis,
vaccine immunization against infectious disease outbreaks, market trend forecasts). After
relevant data are identified, those data should be cleaned by the removal of any outliers and
faulty data (e.g., 200-year-old human being) from the analysis.
2. Data standardization: It will be difficult for us to make sense of incompatible data in
different formats (e.g., Excel versus SPSS) or measurement units (e.g., dollar versus yuan).
 So the main purpose of data standardization is to make data consistent and clear. Herein,
what we mean by “consistent” is ensuring that the output (data analysis result) is reliable so
that related data can be identified using a common terminology and format. What we mean
by “clear” is to ensure that the data can be easily understood by those who are not involved
with the data analysis process (Oracle 2015). Also, data standardization ensures that the
analyzed data can be shared across the enterprise.
3. Data analysis: With the standardized data, the next step to take is to figure out what that
data means by describing, condensing, inspecting, recapping, and modeling it. Since raw
data itself means nothing to the decision maker, it is really important for us to select the
proper data analysis tools to interpret what the data tells. In a broad sense, there are two
types of data analysis tools: qualitative approach and quantitative approach. In general, a
qualitative approach aims to develop (usually not predefined) concepts and insights useful
for explaining natural phenomena from holistic, speculative, and descriptive views. It often
deals with data that is not easily converted to numbers and its analysis relies heavily on field
observations, interviews, archives, transcriptions, audio/video recordings, and focus group
discussions. For example, this approach is proven to be useful for segmenting unfamiliar
markets, understanding customer responses to new products, differentiating a company
brand from its competition, and repositioning a product after its market image has gone
stale (Mariampolski 2001). On the other hand, a quantitative approach aims to make sense
of numerical data (numbers) by evaluating it mathematically and reporting its analysis
results in numerical terms. A quantitative approach is primarily concerned with finding
clear patterns of evidence to either support or contradict a preconceived notion or
hypothetical idea that is formulated based on the abstract representation of real-world
situations. As such, it is helpful for fact findings.

These two approaches can be further broken down into many categories, as shown in Figure
1.1. Since categories belonging to the quantitative approach are discussed in detail in
Chapter 3, “Business Analytics Models,” we will briefly introduce well-known categories
of the qualitative approach here. These include narrative analysis, which is intended to
reflect on the subjective accounts of field texts such as stories, folklore, life experiences,
letters, conversations, diaries, and journals presented by people in different contexts and
from different viewpoints (see, e.g., Reissman 2008). Thus, narrative analysis is not
interested in verifying whether field texts are true. Grounded theory develops a set of
general but flexible guidelines for collecting and analyzing qualitative data to construct
theories “grounded” in the data themselves and foster seeing the data in fresh ways
(Charmaz 2006). It usually starts with an examination of a single case from a predefined
population to formulate a general statement and then proceeds to the examination of another
 case to see whether it fits the general statement. This process continues until all the cases of
predefined population fit that statement. Stated simply, content analysis is a systematic and
objective way of interpreting message characteristics from a wide range of text data (e.g.,
words, phrases) obtained from the careful examination of human interactions; character
portrayals in TV commercials, films, and novels; the computer-driven investigation of word
usage in news releases and political speeches; and so forth (Neuendorf 2002). Discourse
analysis aims to analyze the use of “discourse” (i.e., language beyond the level of a
sentence; language behavior linked to social practices; language as a system of thought) in
any communicated messages. Thus, it can be defined as the analysis of language “beyond
the sentence” (Tannen 2015). Discourse analysis allows us to make sense of what we are
hearing or reading based on the analysis of every word spoken by a particular individual,
the timing of her words, and the general topic she addresses when she utters those
words. Domain analysis is intended to discover patterns that exist in cultural behaviors,
social situations, and cultural artifacts in the group from whom the data was
collected. Conversation analysis uncovers details of conversational interaction among
people under the premise that conversation can give us a sense of who we are to one another
and that conversational interaction is sequentially organized, and talk can be analyzed in
terms of the process of social interaction rather than in terms of motives or social status
(Holstein and Gubrium 2000). Conversation analysis allows us to capture shifts in meaning
of language a person spoke, changes in her nuances, and conveyance of nonverbal
messages.

Figure 1.1 Types of data analysis tools.

4. Data Reporting: To create actionable insights into the analysis results, the results should be
presented to the intended users in such a way that they can be accessed in real time and be
understood by the users without much technical expertise. Thus, the results should be
 rendered in tabular, graphical, and other visual formats. Some of the data visualization tools
such as Instant-Atlas, Fusion-Charts, and Visualize Free that support data presentation
include the dynamic interactive feature that enables the user to see alternative results under
the “what-if” scenarios.

As discussed, extracting actual business value from data overload is an onerous task that should
be performed in a systematic, ordered fashion. To maximize the efficiency and effectiveness of
data extraction, it is desired that business executives develop clear data management policy and
procedural guidelines to follow based on the aforementioned steps.

1.5 Unique Challenges for Business Analytics

Since today’s competition is increasingly knowledge-based, knowledge obtained from the
analysis of big data can be a key productive resource of the firm. Recognizing the opportunity to
leverage information-driven knowledge as a competitive differentiator, many firms may be
interested in learning more about their customer needs, demand patterns, purchase behaviors,
market forces, industry dynamics, and technological advances through business analytics.
Business analytics, however, can pose a number of unique challenges associated with the
volume, velocity, and variety of data influx. First, a sheer volume of big data can not only
overwhelm the capacity of data analysts and computer systems, but also create redundancy and
inconsistency with conflicting information. Also, in the process of big data aggregation, some
key information can be left out and then unintentionally withheld. In other words, the usefulness
of big data rests on the quality of data input and thus business analytics can suffer from the
GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) syndrome: The less trustworthy the data, the less trustworthy the
data analysis result. Second, in today’s fast-changing business world, the rate at which big data
flows into the organization will be much higher than before. That is to say, data comes in faster
than the organization has a need for it. Thus, it would be challenging for data analysts to capture
and digest quickly transmitted data in real time and diffuse information or knowledge gained
from those data to multiple end users in codified forms (e.g., documented texts, tables, charts,
figures, diagrams, scientific formulas, and mathematical expressions). Third, since big data
typically come from different sources in different formats (e.g., texts from social media,
graphical images from YouTube), the standardization and normalization of data (especially
unstructured data) will be another challenge facing the data analysts.

In addition, every time data are collected and transmitted to multiple parties, the data security
and privacy issues will arise. Especially in a global setting, varying privacy laws on data
collection/sharing in different countries can make the use of business analytics extremely
challenging for multination firms. For example, the European Union (EU) works to finalize
sweeping regulations that set higher privacy standards for personal data collection and analysis
in EU countries (Burns 2015). These kinds of new measures, which were released in draft form
in 2012 and are expected to be finalized in late 2015 or in early 2016, will heighten already
stringent EU privacy protections and subsequently limit the use of business analytics.
Furthermore, given many different business analytics platforms and tools designed for particular
functionalities (e.g., data discovery, data streaming, data processing, ad hoc reporting and
querying), firms embracing business analytics will face the technical challenges of managing,
consolidating, and unifying various incompatible business analytics platforms, tools, and
database management systems.

1.6 Capitalizing on Business Analytics for Building a Winning Global Strategy

While leading economies (e.g., U.S., Germany, United Kingdom) in Europe and North America
gradually lost their economic clout due to their stagnant domestic markets for the past decade,
emerging economies (e.g., China, India, Brazil) in Asia and Latin America have begun to flex
their economic muscles thanks to their rapid population growth and increasing purchasing
power. To cope with this economic power shift, a globalization of business activities has become
a norm for many companies. A typical rationale for going global includes the following: (1) the
expansion and diversification of customer bases; (2) the extension of product life cycles due to a
possibility that established but waning products in one market can turn into hot-selling products
in another overseas market; (3) spreading financial and market risks across the countries; (4) less
competition in untapped but emerging foreign markets; (5) cost-saving opportunities in low-cost
countries. Despite the aforementioned benefit potential, an entry into a foreign marketplace can
bring a myriad of unforeseen risk, uncertainty, and headaches. For instance, since business
customs and customer behavior would differ from one country to another, marketing strategy has
to be tailored toward each local market. Laws and regulations governing business activities will
vary from one country to another, and thus business activities can be further constrained with
few options. Due to a geographical dispersion, the cost of logistics will be higher and a supply
chain associated with the global flow of goods and services will be stretched further with a
greater complexity. In a global marketplace, a margin for error would be small due to
unfamiliarity with local practices and business culture. That is to say, business success in a
global marketplace rests heavily on the firm’s ability to make a right strategic decision based on
the right information at the right time. Such ability can be enhanced by the smart use of big data
(namely, business analytics). Thus, the role of business analytics in a global business setting is
greater than in a domestic setting. This means that the exploitation of business analytics should
be embedded within global business strategy.

Despite a growing significance of business analytics to global business success, the recent SAP
survey reported that a mere 27% of U.S. firms had a plan for the use of business analytics or any
form of business intelligence tools, and only 13.5% of the surveyed firms used business analytics
on a daily or ongoing basis (Primault 2012). A lack of business analytics application may be
attributed to the user’s unfamiliarity with this tool, unproven benefits, implementation cost
concerns and hassles, internal resistance against the adoption of a newly introduced tool, and a
difficulty in leveraging it as the competitive differentiator. To overcome these hurdles, the
potential users of business analytics should identify key success factors and then formulate
business analytics implementation strategy as part of their global business strategy. Figure
1.2 displays a list of key success factors for business analytics.

Figure 1.2 Success pillars of business analytics.

The details of key success factors are described here:

1. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure: Valuable data cannot be

captured, stored, and analyzed without the support of computer systems (both hardware and
software), multimedia communication tools, and analytical tools. As such, proper
investment in such supporting systems (i.e., ICT infrastructure) is essential for the
successful use of business analytics. Since both overinvestment and underinvestment can
hurt the business bottom line, in that the former will lead to wasted resources, and the latter
will limit ICT capabilities, a careful investment strategy should be developed by involving
all the affected parties and users who will share the cost and benefit of the ICT investment.
 2. Database Management System (DBMS): DBMS is the system software that enables the
users and programmers to create, store, retrieve, modify, update, and manage data in an
organized fashion. Without the DBMS, the business analysts cannot get access to data and
lose the opportunity to interact with data to extract meaningful information. Also, the
DBMS gives the business analysts a chance to maintain the concurrency, security, privacy,
integrity, and relevancy of collected data. Furthermore, as the central storage of data, the
DBMS allows its users to use the same data and thus obviate the potential confusion and
inconsistency emanating from multiple data sources.
3. Data Discovery Governance Policy: The companies are becoming increasingly serious
about the notion of “data as an asset” as they face increasing pressure for reporting a “single
version of the truth.” In a 2006 survey of North American firms that had deployed business
analytics, a program for the governance of data was reported to be one of the five success
factors for deriving business value from big data (Khatri and Brown 2010). As such, one of
the important prerequisites to business analytics is to develop disciplined rules and clear
guidelines as to who will be collecting data, which data should be collected, who will be
responsible for monitoring and measuring data quality, and how data will be collected,
stored, and maintained to ensure its integrity and security.
4. Business Analytics Platforms: Business analytics can be powered by many different choices
of platforms provided by various IT vendors (e.g., Oracle, SAP, HP, IBM, and Cloudera).
These different platforms come with different functionalities, different cloud options,
different levels of memory and stream-analysis capabilities, and varying data processing
power. Thus, a caution should be exercised in selecting multiple platforms. This caution
includes the establishment of specific selection criteria (e.g., architecture, query engine,
security, scalability, disaster recovery) and the integration plan of utilizing multiple
platforms complementing each other.
5. Knowledge Management: After insights are gained through business analytics, those will be
the sources of the company’s knowledge properties for a long time to come. To keep them
as the valuable assets and leverage them as the competitive differentiator, the knowledge
has to be classified in terms of its content and format and managed accordingly. In addition,
the company should ensure that knowledge properties will not be lost or released to its
rivals during knowledge-sharing activities.
6. Continuous Improvement: No competitive advantage will be permanent, since it is a relative
concept. Likewise, a competitive edge created by business analytics cannot be sustained
forever, unless more timely, more accurate, and deeper insights are created through the
continuous upgrade of business analytics tools and their supporting mechanism. Thus, it is
necessary to build the closed-loop framework containing “plan, do, act, check, and
improve” cycles of business analytics application.

As discussed previously, the best way to maximize business analytics is to incorporate it as part
of the global business strategy and then develop specific action plans for its successful
implementation.

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