Like all areas of life, the world of business intelligence is filled with its own trends and buzzwords. We take a look at 12 of the biggest of 2016:
Big Data
This seems to be the major buzzword in BI over the past few years, referring to the large volume, variety and speed of data gathered to reach such a point that simply comprehending the sheer amount of available data becomes a challenge to the user. Data-centric industries such as telecommunications have had large sets of data for many years, predating this buzzword, and lead the field in terms of Big Data assembly and analysis.
Cloud BI
Like all cloud-based software, Cloud BI allows users to access their data from anywhere in the world across a variety of devices, without the need to install software or the inconvenience of being reliant on one single computer to access and control it. It tends to be relatively cheap and scaleable, and simple to administrate.
Dashboards
A dashboard aggregates data into one place that can be easily updated and viewed. Dashboards can display business intelligence information, KPI (Key Performance Indicators), and many other types of analytics information essential to your business’ operations.
Take a look at some designing visualization principles to make your dashboard experience more efficient.
Data-Driven business
Organisations and companies who survive and grow in the future are undoubtedly going to be the ones who invest in BI systems to better understand tangible KPIs and advanced levels of data analytics. Anyone who sticks to over reliance on gut feelings or ignores reports will be increasingly left behind as data-driven business techniques allow those who take advantage of the masses of data out there to surge forward. Here's how data can change your business.
Data Science
Three years ago Harvard Business Review declared that Data Scientist would be the sexiest job of the 21st century. While it might not seem sexy to the average person on the street, in the business of BI great data scientists are the rock stars of the data world. In an increasingly data-driven world, for now the term Data Science remains a bit vague, but covers an array of analytics and statistical skills with clear entrepreneurial thinking and vision.
Intelligent Decision Automation
Very much the stuff of science fiction, Intelligent Decision Automation is the combination of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and automation to take aboard analytics information and make decisions based on KPIs. Right now IDA is used for simple decisions, but with AI a key area of development for companies like Google, who’ve made their own machine learning software open source, this is a technology very much in its infancy and with the potential to soon make key decisions for businesses and organisations.
Mobile Analytics
With our mobile devices becoming increasingly indispensable, the analytics provided by our smartphones and tablets are more essential and relevant than ever. In recent surveys, over 70% of respondents planned to introduce or rebuild their customer-facing apps specifically for mobile.
Personal Analytics
Wearables have become big business in recent years, especially in the fitness and lifestyle industries. Personal Analytics refers to the data collected from the health monitoring in FitBit wristbands, Apple Watch and others that track their users’ weight, heart rate and other fitness performance data. Right now Personal Analytics wearables face two major obstacles: Their high prices put off many potential users especially as most still rely on smartphone connections for parts of their functionality. Consumers are also generally are unsure about their benefit nor feel the need to measure and monitor their body functions.
Predictive Analytics
Now in regular commercial use, Predictive Analytics relies on the available data for it’s accuracy, but is used to analyse historical and current data to understand customers, products and trends better in order to spot future opportunities and risks. While this is a huge advancement in business intelligence, it’s still very much in its infancy and it’s application is not yet as widespread as claimed
Real-Time Data
As the name suggests, this is the access to analytics within moments of their occurrence, allowing almost instant reactions from organisations to their customers and events. We’re not yet at the point of 100% real-time, but it won’t be long until this is commonplace, allowing instantaneous responses, completely custom-targeted marketing and other uses of the real-time data.
Smart Data
With the noise made by all the data available out there, Smart Data is about clean, clear and valuable data which can be used effectively by companies and organisations to solve problems and improve efficiency. Smart Data lets us see the clear context and relationships between strands of data, not just their mere existence. Also, make sure you are asking the right questions when analysing your data.
Visual Business Analytics
Visual Business Analytics refers to platforms such as Viur which offer users a simple drag and drop style method of setting their analytics parameters and criteria. VBAs aggregate and standardise data coming from a variety of sources in order to unify and compare the various strands, offering users an easy way to analyse all their data and display it in a clear graphic manner.
Here's how Viur can help your business grow.