Why Big Data Analytics is the first step towards digital transformation

By Vishal Jain, Director, Inspira Enterprise

The pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated the process of digital transformation within organizations across the world. As emphasized by researchers at Harvard University, “India is leapfrogging into the Fourth Industrial Revolution’. With more than half a billion internet subscribers, India is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for digital consumers. However, the adoption of relevant and latest technologies is uneven among businesses.

In today’s world, data is considered the most valuable asset and can be a differentiating factor for the success of an organization. However, this can only be achieved when organizations can effectively use data generated by them. And here is where Data Analytics can be a game-changer.Analytics is changing the way businesses are done, giving way for novel business models and revenue streams.

The term “Big Data” is often cited but what does it mean? According to Gartner, “Big Data is high-volume, high velocity and high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective,innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making”.

Big Data and Analytics is a complex process and mainly aims at uncovering different types of information that are unknown or hidden. The insights derived from data are not only useful to drive digitization and automation of workflows but also play a key role in the decision-making process. It underpins most digital transformation efforts.

And in the following paragraphs, I will attempt to highlight why businesses should implement Big Data and Analytics solutions as the first step towards digital transformation, and how it will be beneficial in the long run.

Understanding existing and prospective customers: The scope of Big Data is not limited to large businesses but can be a huge support for smaller businesses and startups to gain a deep understanding of their existing customers and prospects. It will go through a huge pool of information and deliver relevant information to target new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers. Along with providing customer insight, it can also help identify key drivers of buying behavior to better target prospects and nurture leads through the sales funnel.

Enhancing customer experience: Data Analytics tools allow organizations to get to ‘know’ their customers better and to actively build loyalty rather than just respond to customer demands, orders, and complaints. Data Analytics can also be used to find out what is behind customers’ behavior even when they have not been upfront with detailed information. This AI-based tool uses behavioral analysis to find out why people are interacting, and about its implications. This helps reduce the gap and disconnect in the marketing strategies and to engage through more personalized campaigns for improved communication.

Predict to plan better: Predictive Analytics is the process of collecting the right data and transforming it into actionable insights. It offers insights on target markets, customers, sectors, etc., to help analysts make more accurate predictions and organizations to strategies for better business outcomes. It encompasses a variety of statistical techniques from data mining, predictive modeling, and machine learning, to analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future or otherwise unexpected events. As companies look for ways to become more efficient and thrive, predictive analytics can be a great strategy to move forward.

Business value from Big Data: Successful enterprises are not content to capture and manage bigdata and other new data assets as a cost center. Instead, they gain business value from new data,largely via analytics and reporting. A data lake can be a big data source for analytics. Hadoop has become the preferred (but not exclusive) platform for big data and datalakes because adopters anticipate low-cost hardware and software and extreme scalability.

Big Data and Analytics solutions help businesses formulate better strategies devised on the back of data and logic. By providing insights on customers and prospective clients, their behavior, it allows companies to make meaningful, strategic adjustments that minimize costs and maximize results.