What is Data Analytics?

Defining data analytics and big data

Data analytics is simply the use of data to develop a better understanding of various aspects of your organisation. 
The data you need to collate, prepare and analyse can be from different sources, sizes and formats. When there’s a lot of data, it’s known as big data.

Big data software

Data analytics has come a long way. Software is now available to handle the complex data analysis demands of today’s organisations. These software solutions can manage millions of rows of complex data and the near infinite combinations and possible relationships which can exist between data points.

How data analysis works

For data analysis to work, it requires three essential elements - a clear purpose, functional and intuitive visualisations, and technical platforms and expertise.

Purpose

Start with a clear, linked purpose

Collecting data ‘just for the sake of it’ benefits no one. Business data analytics is most effective when it’s directly traceable to your organisation's goals, strategies and overall vision. Having a clear purpose before starting a data analytics project allows managers and staff across the organisation to easily see what contribution each part of the organisation is making to the overall vision so everyone knows where to focus their energy.

The insights derived from data visualisations will give you the ability to optimise all aspects of your organisation. Whether you choose to do this all at once or focus on key areas first is completely up to you.

Value derived from data analytics isn’t limited to good economic times. During low business cycles, data analytics provides great insight to cost saving opportunities and ways to optimise limited resources.

Data visualisation

See everything before making a decision

We use the latest, industry leading, analytics data software to develop easy-to-understand visualisations that display all of your strategies and how each area is contributing towards achieving them.

Using these intuitive, interactive dashboards gives you the flexibility to analyse the nearly infinite number of possible relationships between various elements of your data (by adjusting easy to use filters and settings).

We help you set up the goals, measures and metrics for each of your strategies and assign relative weightings - giving you the power to monitor performance, and identify and act on opportunities as soon as they arise.

Cascading KPIs are used to create interactive visualisations, giving you the control to set the level of detail displayed while seeing the relationship between each level.

The ability to analyse complex scenarios, relationships and interdependencies is what gives you the insights to make better informed decisions - insights simply not possible using Microsoft Excel or any standard reporting suite. Automated and customised alerts and scheduled reports keeps key people informed and ready to act on insights as soon as they become available.

Vision Strategy

Technical expertise

A foundation for reliable, dependable data

“We collect the data, but then we don’t use it.” We can all identify with the scenario where we fill in data frequently but rarely use that information again.

Most organisations collect data and analytics across multiple systems. One of the biggest challenges is bringing this data together and aligning it to enable insightful analysis. Data collation typically involves a range of technical steps. Our team of expert data scientists and advisers can help you navigate the process to develop a reliable dataset.

We help to:

  • Identify relevant data from internal and external sources
  • Extract data using SQL queries and other means
  • Cleanse data using programming and automation
  • Integrate data based on common attributes
  • Match data using match tables and other transformation techniques
  • Upload data into a central data warehouse (single source of truth).

We also have expertise advanced technical matters such as:

  • Detailed modelling and forecasting
  • Predictive analytics
  • Inferential statistical modelling
  • Machine learning, data mining and optimisation
  • Automation of data updates, alerts and general reporting.

Contact us

Contact our team to discuss your needs using the request for service form. Alternatively, call us on 1300 138 991 to speak with an adviser in your nearest BDO office.