Analytics for the Masses

Big data, big business, big value

The promise of big data is both compelling and straightforward — crunch large data volumes (operational, transactional, structured, unstructured) to unlock insights (correlations, trends, outliers, etc.) that inform timely decisions that boost efficiency, the bottom line and competitiveness.

Topping the list of the many significant benefits of big-data analytics is customer intimacy, faster, smarter decision-making, greater productivity and sustained competitive advantage. But the prerequisites to achieving big-data analytics are formidable — from ensuring data quality and seamless systems integration to extending analytics throughout the enterprise and incorporating the latest advances in machine learning, AI and IoT.

IDC forecasts worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics (BDA) will reach $150.8 billion in 2017, an increase of 12.4% over 2016. Commercial purchases of BDA-related hardware, software, and services are expected to maintain a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.9% through 2020 when revenues will be more than $210 billion.

The verified, enormous value hidden in big data is driving strong business interest in big data analytics solutions. McKinsey reports that retailers effectively tapping big data can increase operating margins by as much as 60%. Walmart used big data analysis to drive a 10–15% increase in completed online sales for $1 billion in incremental revenue. According to a survey conducted by MIT Sloan Management Review, top-performing organizations are twice as likely as lower-performers to apply analytics in their operations.

The analytics boom continues

Analytics — predictive, historical, diagnostic, reporting, analysis (and other kinds) — are all the rage in business today, and for good reason. The unprecedented data available on your customers and business operations holds the key to not only strengthening customer loyalty and improving core operations but also to driving unparalleled productivity gains, launching new business models and upending entire industries. Organizations that effectively harness analytics will be able to create significant value and differentiate themselves, while those that stall on the analytics front will find themselves increasingly losing ground and trying futilely to catch up. The chasm between the two will only become more pronounced as technological advances in analytics continue and adoption of analytics reaches critical mass.

Across the board, industry experts are predicting big spending on analytics software and services in the years ahead:

• As reported in Forbes, according to one leading analyst firm, the global analytics market will be worth $18.3 billion by the end of the 2017, representing an increase of 64% since 2015.

• As reported in InformationWeek, another leading analyst firm predicts that the sales of big data and business analytics applications, tools, and services will increase more than 50%, from nearly $122 billion in 2015 to more than $187 billion in 2019

• According to IDG Enterprise 2016 Data & Analytics Research, July 5, 2016, improving customer relationships (55%) and making the business more data-focused (53%) are the top two business goals or objectives driving investments in data-driven initiatives today. 78% of enterprises agree that collection and analysis of big data have the potential to fundamentally change the way they do business over the next 1 to 3 years, according to IDG.

A sunny future for cloud analytics

Just a few years ago, on-premise was by far the dominant model for deploying business analytics software. Fast-forward to today, and adoption of cloud analytics is rapidly taking hold.

The obvious reason for the strong growth in cloud analytics is quicker time-to-value, lower technology, maintenance and administration costs, and elasticity.

Most importantly, cloud analytics foster pervasive use of analytics by more people throughout your organization, and while the monetary gain of pervasive analytics/BI might be difficult to measure, more people making better, faster, data-driven decisions is a vital component of success that none would argue against.

In addition, moving analytics to the cloud satisfies scalability and performance requirements, makes it easier to incorporate new and improved user interfaces, enables faster and more efficient information sharing, eases integration of data from other sources, and dramatically speeds up development cycles for new analytic applications.

Check out what industry pundits are saying about the cloudy future for analytics:

• With the rapid growth in analytics capabilities on cloud platforms, users will leverage large cloud vendors more prominently for analytical software in 2017, says the International Institute for Analytics (IIA).

• IDC predicts that by 2018, new cloud pricing models for specific analytics workloads, will drive up to 5 times higher growth in spending on cloud versus on-premises analytics solutions.

• Gartner expects the majority of new analytics licensing buying to be for cloud deployments by 2020.

• According to MarketsandMarkets, the cloud analytics market is expected to grow from $7.5 Billion in 2015 to $23.1 Billion in 2020 at a CAGR of 25.1% during the forecast period.

Oracle has cloud analytics covered

A recognized leader in analytics/BI solutions, Oracle has stepped up its big-data analytics game considerably over the past few years, most notably by launching Oracle Analytics Cloud in 2014, the most comprehensive analytics offering in the cloud, combining business intelligence, big data analytics, and embedded SaaS analytics.

Oracle Analytics Cloud combines all analytics capabilities — including planning, predictive analytics, reporting and business intelligence (BI) — in a single SaaS solution. Users can take advantage of a modern, intuitive user experience and save time by planning, analyzing, predicting and collaborating in context. As a true SaaS solution, Oracle Analytics Cloud offers scalability, accommodating everything from small, nimble departmental deployments to global implementations.

Expert guidance needed to win at cloud analytics

Oracle’s analytics/BI strategy is designed to help businesses get beyond limited desktop tools and move to a modern, built-for-the-cloud analytics/BI solution that is accessible to (and easily consumed by) all employees throughout the enterprise.

Bringing this strategy to fruition requires support from third-party service providers with deep expertise in cloud architecture/delivery, extensive application/systems integration capabilities, and a proven track record across the entire spectrum of analytics/BI solutions.

The data required for effective decision making resides in numerous places throughout the enterprise – databases, data warehouses, operational applications, transactional systems, the Internet/Intranet, etc. Realizing the promise of analytics/BI necessitates pulling all of this disparate data together in real time without disrupting business.

For our part, the depth, breadth and flexibility of AST’s Oracle-based analytics solutions combined with our extensive systems integration expertise enables customers of all sizes and across diverse industries to embark upon or accelerate their cloud analytics journey.

At AST, we are committed to helping our customers unlock the potential of their data – wherever it resides, and make better, faster, more informed decisions throughout their organization with Oracle-based analytics solutions.

In working toward this goal with our customers, we leverage the latest cloud, mobile and data-visualization technologies, along with present and future Oracle-based BI and analytics solutions, and increasingly hybrid (on-premise + cloud) delivery models.

When it comes to meeting the analytics needs of our customers, AST’s overarching goal is three-fold: make analytics more affordable; make analytics more efficient and easier to use; and extend the reach of analytics to more business users throughout the enterprise.

Contact AST today to learn how our Oracle Cloud experts can help your organization embark on or accelerate an enterprise-wide analytics strategy.