Data helps businesses make smarter decisions, spot trends, save money, manage risks, stay ahead of competitors, and plan for the future. Simply put, it’s one of the most effective ways to make better plans and choices. The process of gathering, analyzing, and understanding data is known as data analytics. The ability to analyze data is as advantageous for businesses as the ability to see for humans. This article highlights how data analytics consulting helps businesses use their data efficiently and wisely to make smarter business decisions. We’ll also share how custom software for data analytics can turn raw data into useful information.

What is data analytics?

Data analytics is the process of extracting, transforming, and interpreting raw data to discover valuable insights. It involves using specialized software and methods to take the raw data businesses collect every day and analyze it for meaningful patterns, trends, and relationships. In short, data analytics turns raw data into information you can use. It helps you to understand your business better, make informed decisions, and plan for the future.

How analyzing data can help companies

Data analytics has implications that have propelled many businesses to success. In 2023, 91.9% of organizations that invested in data and analytics achieved measurable value. Here are a few real-life examples:

Netflix

Netflix, a leading entertainment service provider, invests heavily in data analytics. The company collects vast amounts of data from over 100 million subscribers. This includes when their users pause a show, what they watch, and when they watch it. It then uses this data to decide which programs to produce and promote, leading to highly successful shows like "Stranger Things" and "The Crown". This practice has allowed Netflix to maintain a competitive edge in the market of on-demand entertainment.

American Express

American Express uses predictive analysis to create more personalized experiences for its customers. They analyze historical transactions to develop algorithms predicting future customer behavior, such as likely customer churn, potential new customers, and investment in certain services. By providing this predictive insight, data analytics supports the company to proactively address issues, create targeted offers, and make informed business decisions. The company’s robust application of data analytics has been recognized as contributing to customer retention and business growth.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola, one of the world’s most recognizable brands, leverages data analytics to sharpen its digital marketing strategies and ensure operational efficiency. The company tracks consumer behavior, understanding what customers are buying and where which is integral to their product development and positioning strategies. They used data analytics to create ’Share a Coke’, a highly successful campaign where bottles were personalized with the most popular personal names in each country.

Amazon

Amazon, the e-commerce giant, uses data analytics to drive its recommendation engine, a key component of its business model. By comprehensively analyzing customer purchase history, viewed items, and items in the shopping cart, Amazon provides personalized product recommendations, enhancing the overall customer shopping experience, and driving significant revenue uplift. Their use of data analytics has played a significant role in making them one of the most successful e-commerce platforms in the world.

McDonald’s

McDonald’s, in their turn, implemented data analytics into their operations to streamline service and improve customer satisfaction. Using demographic and purchase data, they found that customers valued speed and efficiency during peak hours but preferred a more relaxed, dine-in experience at other times. As a result, they introduced dual-lane drive-throughs for rush hours and a more extensive cafe-style menu for off-peak hours, significantly boosting their sales.

Why businesses need data analytics consulting

Data analytics consulting helps businesses use the collected information wisely, enabling them to make faster and better decisions. Usually, companies have lots of unstructured data that requires specialized technical solutions for gathering and analyzing it.

Think about a store that sells many products. The store has to keep the right amount of each product in stock. Too much, and you’re wasting space. Too little, and customers can’t buy what they want. But how do they know what the right amount is? Here, a data analytics consultant can help. They look at data on past sales to predict how many of each product will sell in the future. This helps the store manage its stock better and save money.

Sometimes companies wish to improve but they don’t know where to start from — analyzing data can help find the direction for growth. A data analytics consultant can take a look at all the data and help the company figure out how to use it.

For example, imagine a restaurant that keeps losing customers and doesn’t know why. The consultant can look at the restaurant’s data, like what people order and how they rate the food, to find out what’s going wrong. Maybe orders are always late, or a few menu items always get bad reviews.

A data analytics consultant helps the business use their data in ways they didn’t think of before. This can lead to big improvements, help companies find new opportunities, reduce waste, and identify risks.

The process of data analytics consulting

Data analytics consulting is a multi-stage, meticulous process designed to create a "data pipeline" capable of bridging the gap between data collection and data interpretation for improved business decision-making. At Ronas IT, we strive to make the process as smooth as possible, with specialized services aimed at capturing, storing, and analyzing extensive volumes of data from multiple sources.

Take a look at the scheme:

It shows our approach to data analytics and how it works. Now let’s discuss it in more detail:

This journey begins with the collection and structuring of data into a data lake. Think of it as the reservoir where raw data, freshly mined from various business sources, plunges to embark on its road to becoming insightful visual data.

Next, data from the data lake feeds into this warehouse, transformed into structured blocks of data. The data warehouse serves as the fortress of data, ensuring its secure storage and long-term maintenance. This space makes it easier to store data for a long period of time for repeated analysis and long-term tracking of trends, providing the very basis for fruitful analytical exercises.

The final stage within the warehouse prepares the data for visualization. We transform datasets into understandable models that can be easily visualized.

Once we have the data ready and visually presented, we can spot patterns and trends that you may need to pay attention to. These patterns can give you actionable insights, and suggest decisions on how to better run your business.

Our goal at the end of the process is to turn all of the data we’ve gathered from different parts of your business into tables and dashboards to analyze it and find valuable insights. Keeping your data safe from possible breaches is also a huge priority for us. Instead of relying on third-party apps that can be risky, we ensure that all of your data is stored and managed safely in your own data storage.

Benefits of data analytics consulting

Data analytics consultants guide businesses expertly in collecting, handling, and interpreting complex data. They can convert raw figures into meaningful insights to drive actionable business strategies. By doing this, businesses can gain a clear comprehension of consumer behavior and preferences, which enables better customer targeting, optimized product or service development, and gaining a competitive edge.

Operational efficiency

Engaging with data analytics consulting can also enhance operational efficiency. By analyzing and interpreting numerical data, businesses uncover bottlenecks, inefficiencies, and operational gaps, which they can then streamline for elevated overall productivity.

Predictive analytics

Decisions, when backed by data analytics, often turn out more accurate and future-oriented. Consultants devise problem-solving scenarios based on predictive analytics, helping businesses mitigate risks in advance and make well-informed strategic decisions.

Reducing costs and increasing profits

Moreover, businesses can witness financial improvements. Data analytics consulting paves the way for businesses to maximize their revenue and reduce costs, as consultants present insights into profitable opportunities and wasted resources.

Driving innovation

Data analytics consulting can also foster innovation within a company. With data bridging knowledge gaps, businesses can leverage technology and drive innovation to keep ahead of the curve and keep up with changing market trends.

Strengthening customer relationships

Data analytics consulting can also enhance a company’s relationship with its customers. By identifying customer preferences, buyer habits, and satisfaction levels, businesses can personalize their offering and interactions. This not only increases customer loyalty but also improves customer acquisition efforts.

Boosting market responsiveness

Lastly, data analytics consulting allows businesses to be more responsive to market changes. With real-time data insights, businesses can quickly adapt their strategies to shifts in market conditions or customer behavior. This agility can give them a distinct advantage over less data-savvy competitors, allowing for quicker pivots and market adaptation.

Therefore, investing in data analytics consulting can unlock untapped potential and set the stage for sustainable growth and long-term success by leveraging the power of data-driven insights.

To conclude

Data analytics is reshaping the way businesses operate, offering a wealth of insights that allow for informed and strategic decision-making. By investing in data analytics consulting and adopting custom software for data analytics, organizations can unlock the full potential of their data, gaining advantages such as cost reduction, improved efficiency, and a competitive edge. From industry giants like Netflix and Amazon to smaller enterprises and startups, embracing data analytics can pave the path for sustainable growth and long-term success. The future is data-driven, and the sooner businesses hop onto this trend, the brighter their prospects will look.

If you wish to analyze your company’s data, you can always contact us for a consultation. Just click the ‘Get in touch’ button below.