Business analytics is one of the hottest topics in technology right now.
Companies have correctly deduced that they can view their sales, marketing, supply chain, manufacturing and design efficiency data in various and useful ways. They can also create reports that can be compared to each other as well as compared to other useful information about their industry.
What some companies miss, however, is the imperative presented by high-quality analytics: taking action.
One of the providers inspiring companies like Shazam, creators of a popular music identifying app, is Salesforce Wave Analytics. Their message is a simple one: acting based on the information you gather is the key to success.
The Problem
Spreadsheets have remained the traditional quick and dirty method of capturing sales information and attempting to derive meaning from it. The problem with using spreadsheets in this manner is that it’s impossible to separate data from presentation in an application like Excel. Once data and presentation are linked, moving the data to some other kind of reporting platform is almost impossible.
Part of this problem is due to the fact that spreadsheets, while useful for organizing financial or scientific data into rows and columns, were never meant to be databases.
Shazam ran into this problem. Fortunately the solution is rather simple.
The Solution
The most obvious step in solving the spreadsheet-as-database problem is to separate the data from the presentation tier. This is the fundamental step all business analytics platforms provide that spreadsheets cannot. Once freed from the confines of the rows, columns and the occasional pie chart standard, sales and other kinds of data can be “packaged” in a wide variety of formats. This is the basic value proposition platforms like Salesforce Wave Analytics provide.
A practical demonstration of the power of this approach is to compare what an Excel user can do compared to an Access user. One is an application for performing complex mathematical calculations; the other is a database.
The Benefit
The most prominent practical benefit of being able to view data from a variety of vantage points is the ability to see where improvements in the business can be made.
There are two different ways this ability can become more powerful. First, the larger the data set, the more consistent and credible the results are. Second, the longer the interval during which data is collected, the more opportunities there are to make comparisons based on seasons, new product releases, competitor activities and so forth. These are all features from which platforms like Salesforce Wave Analytics naturally benefit.
These are also among the benefits Shazam identified as some of the most important reasons they are happy with their decision to move away from static data storage and towards a more versatile and powerful platform like Wave.
Breaking a problem down into its component parts and then using atomized and granular software to solve the problem in distinct phases is among the most powerful technology accelerants in the industry. Entire software systems have long been constructed from these disparate parts to create better solutions.
When this principle is applied to data analytics, the results are both practical and more powerful.