Published on https://medium.com/@menonvid/significance-of-data-and-its-analysis-c02d2d7d70ab
In our day-to-day life, decisions are taken based on what happened last time or what will happen if we take a particular decision. This is nothing but analyzing our past or future and making decisions based on it. The same thing, when done by an analyst for business purposes, is called Data Analytics i.e. it is a process of cleaning, transforming, and modelling data to discover useful information for decision-making in business.
Data touches every facet of our lives. Spotify curates’ new playlists based on the songs one plays. Amazon’s predictive algorithm suggests a bike pump after one has purchased a helmet. Hospitals use analytics to save lives by resolving inefficiencies like patient wait time, patient re-admissions, and understaffed units. Across nations, intelligent power grids can increase production when and where it’s needed, and information systems are used to improve agriculture in developing countries. Even lawyers use data to analyze how specific federal court judges make decisions. These are just a few of the many applications of analytics. Building a career in analytics allows one to touch upon countless industries.
The world is becoming more and more data-driven, with endless amounts of data available to work with. Big companies like Google and Microsoft use data to make decisions, but they’re not the only ones. Companies in nearly every industry can benefit from the work of data analysts, from healthcare providers to retail stores to fast food chains. The insights that data analysts bring to an organization can be valuable to employers who want to know more about the needs of their consumer or end user.
Regardless of which industry they work in, data analysts can expect to spend their time developing systems for collecting data and compiling their findings into reports that can help improve their company. Analysts can be involved in any part of the analysis process. In a data analyst role, one could be included in everything from setting up an analytics system to providing insights based on the data one collects, one may even be asked to train others in their data-collection system. The work of analysts has benefited companies immensely. Companies using data analytics have shown improved decision making. They are able to use the insights they gain from data analytics to inform their decisions, leading to better outcomes.
Data analytics eliminates much of the guesswork from planning marketing campaigns, choosing what content to create, developing products and more. It gives one a 360-degree view of potential customers, which means one understands them more fully, enabling one to better meet their needs. In addition, with modern data analytics technology, one can continuously collect and analyze new data to update one’s understanding as conditions change. Marketing efforts have also been seen to be more effective. When one understands the audience better, one can market to them more effectively. Data analytics also gives useful insights into how campaigns are performing, so that one can fine-tune them for optimal outcomes. Using certain data analytics tool, one can get to know which audience segments are most likely to interact with a campaign and convert. This information helps to adjust the targeting criteria either manually or through automation, or use it to develop different messaging and creative for different segments. This helps to improve targeting results and leads to more conversions.
Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of data analytics has been improved customer service. Data analytics provide one with more insights into customers, allowing one to develop tailored customer service based on their needs, provide more customization and build stronger relationships with them. Data collected could reveal information about customers’ communications preferences, their interests, their concerns and more. Having a central location for this data also ensures that your whole customer service team, as well as your sales and marketing teams, are on the same page. These improvements that stem through data analytics have led to more efficient operations in companies. This helps to streamline the processes, save money and boost the bottom line. When one has an improved understanding of what the audience wants, less time is wasted on creating ads and content that don’t match with the audience’s interests, resulting in less wastage of money, which subsequently leads to improved results from campaigns and content strategies. In addition to reducing your costs, analytics can also boost your revenue through increased conversions, ad revenue or subscriptions.
A career in data analytics can be worth pursuing. Analytics has become a necessity for businesses today to operate and succeed, and this is driven by the sheer amount of information present in the world. Two and a half quintillion bytes of data are produced every day. Formerly non-technical areas, such as sales and marketing, have now become data-driven. Data is even being captured in what was once regarded as purely qualitative aspects of life, such as conversation and sentiment. When used correctly, data is an extremely powerful tool that can do everything from predicting crime to forecast election outcomes.
All of this data is empty information without people who can analyze, organize, and interpret it. Two of the most prevalent roles in data analytics are data analyst and data scientist. The former use data to solve business problems, while the latter use it to address open-ended issues. With a foundation in data analytics, one can choose to follow the data science track or branch out into one of many other directions that require analytical knowledge, such as financial analyst, consultant, chief operating officer, or supply chain manager.
Data analysts possess the hard and soft skills needed to translate data and use it to solve business problems. Many great data analysts have learnt hard skills such as statistics, Excel, R, SQL, Python, Hadoop, and Tableau. Others have mathematical and programming backgrounds and learn data analytics to sharpen their business and strategy acumen. Of the top 10 required skills for jobs that pay over $75,000, four of them revolve around data: SQL, Excel, Python, and SQL Server. Professionals with analytical skills typically earn higher salaries than their non-analyst counterparts. On an average, an HR analyst makes 44 percent more than a recruiter, and a marketing analyst makes 75 percent more than a content writer. Managers, directors, and C-level professionals are increasingly required to understand analytics in order to manage teams that revolve around those skills.
Big Data Analytics is considered to be the most wanted expertise by employers and yet they are unable to find employees with relevant expertise. The scope of professional opportunities is anticipated to grow in years to come.