What Are Analytics and How Do They Benefit Your Business?

Analytics. For many business owners, the term can seem like the holy grail of strategy and business performance, providing benefits without any real understanding of the concepts and science behind the process. When you don't have a solid understanding of the concept, it's virtually impossible to apply it to your company to improve your bottom line.

What exactly are analytics and how can you use them to boost your company's performance?

Here's a quick overview to help get you started.

Generally speaking, analytics is the study of large amounts of data to help determine trends in a business. However, the definition falls far short of what analytics can actually do for your business. Originally adopted by marketing and product development operations, analytics have quickly spread to cover a wide range of business divisions and concerns. Instead of making business decisions based on intuition and a general knowledge of the market and industry, analytics provides a scientific basis for decisions driven by massive amounts of data generated through connectivity, sensors and other data-generating opportunities. As companies digitize, many of them are using new analytics tools to help drive daily decision-making processes.

If you regularly ship items to customers, you can analyze shipping data to determine which carriers are providing the fastest service, smallest percentage of freight damage or are linked to better overall reviews from customers. If you are concerned about problems with a new product, you can use sensors to determine issues that may arise over time and make adaptations to the product design before it even begins production. You can even add value by using analytics to determine a standard maintenance schedule, then provide a replenishment service for your customers' regularly replaced parts, such as filters or detergent. Concerned about entering a new market? Analytics help you find the best entry course.

By applying the intelligent use of analytics to your company, you can quickly realize the same sort of strong benefits you've heard about in the news without wasting money by throwing money at issue without a solid understanding of the process and theory. If you need help figuring out how to develop a digitization strategy for your company, please feel free to reach out to our experienced business associates today. At AccountRely, when you're here, you're family.