BUSINESS ANALYTICS

ASSIGNMENT
By: Cindy C. Gabayeron

TACTICAL
Involving or pertatining to actions, ends, or means, that are immediate or short-term in
duration, and/or lesser in importance or magnitude, than those of a strategy or larger
purpose.

OPERATIONAL

An operational definition is the articulation of operationalization (or statement of

procedures) used in defining the terms of a process (or set of validation tests) needed to
determine the nature of an item or phenomenon (a variable, term, or object) and its
properties such as duration, quantity, extension in space, chemical composition, etc.[1][2
FINANCIAL ANALYTICS
Financial analytics is a concept that provides different views on the business’ financial
data. It helps give in-depth knowledge and take strategic actions against them to
improve your business’ overall performance. Financial analytics is a subset of BI &
EPM and has an impact on every aspect of your business. It plays a crucial role in
calculating your business’ profit. It helps you answer every business question related to
your business while letting your forecast the future of your business.

HUMAN RESOURCE ANALYTICS

Human Resource analytics (HR Analytics) is defined as the area in the field of analytics
that deals with people analysis and applying analytical process to the human capital
within the organization to improve employee performance and improving employee
retention.
HR analytics doesn’t collect data about how your employees are performing at work,
instead, its sole aim is to provide better insight into each of the human resource
processes, gathering related data and then using this data to make informed decisions
on how to improve these processes.

MARKETING ANALYTICS
Marketing analytics is the practice of measuring, managing and analyzing marketing
performance to maximize its effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI).
Understanding marketing analytics allows marketers to be more efficient at their jobs
and minimize wasted web marketing dollars.
Beyond the obvious sales and lead generation applications, marketing analytics can
offer profound insights into customer preferences and trends. Despite these compelling
benefits, a majority of organizations fail to ever realize the promises of marketing
analytics. According to a survey of senior marketing executives published in the Harvard
Business Review, "more than 80% of respondents were dissatisfied with their ability to
measure marketing ROI."

HEALTHCARE ANALYTICS
Healthcare analytics is the branch of analysis that focuses on offering insights into
hospital management, patient records, costs, diagnoses, and more. The field covers a
broad swath of the healthcare industry, offering insights on both the macro and micro
level.

When combined with business intelligence suites and data visualization tools,

healthcare analytics helps managers operate better by providing real-time information
that can support decisions and deliver actionable insights.

SUPPLY CHAIN ANALYTICS

Supply chain analytics is the application of mathematics, statistics, predictive modeling
and machine-learning techniques to find meaningful patterns and knowledge in order,
shipment and transactional and sensor data. An important goal of supply chain analytics
is to improve forecasting and efficiency and be more responsive to customer needs. For
example, predictive analytics on point-of-sale terminal data stored in a demand signal
repository can help a business anticipate consumer demand, which in turn can lead to
cost-saving adjustments to inventory and faster delivery.

GOVERNMENT ANALYTICS
Data is a strategic asset in all aspects of government. When presented clearly and
visually, data has enormous potential for increased transparency and improving mission
critical outcomes and performance in a more operationally efficient manner.
With Tableau, Federal, State, and Local organizations can quickly and easily connect to
all their data and visualize it by dragging and dropping—no arcane scripting required.
Connect to live data or research old datasets with ease. Use clean, easy to understand
dashboards and shave months off of reporting timelines. Government analytics add
speed, accuracy, transparency and ease of communication when you leverage Tableau.
See how our government users are leveraging Tableau below.

ANALYTICAL METHODS AND MODELS

ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES
Analytical techniques enable researchers to examine complex relationships between
variables. There are three basic types of analytical techniques:
Regression Analysis
Grouping Methods
Multiple Equation Models
Regression Analysis
Regression analysis assumes that the dependent, or outcome, variable is directly
affected by one or more independent variables. There are four important types of
regression analyses:
Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression
Used to determine the relationship between a dependent variable and one or more
independent variables
Used when the dependent variable is continuous. For example, if the dependent
variable was family child care expenses, measured in dollars, OLS regression would be
used
Logistic regression
Used when the dependent variable is dichotomous, or has only two potential outcomes.
For example, logistic regression would be used to examine whether a family uses child
care subsidies
Hierarchical linear modeling
Used when data are nested. Nested data occur when several individuals belong to the
same group under study. For example, in child care research, many children are cared
for by the same child care provider and many child care providers work within the same
state. The children are nested in the child care provider and the child care provider is
nested in the state
Allows researchers to determine the effects of characteristics for each level of nested
data, child care providers and states, on the outcome variables
Duration models
Used to estimate the length of a status or process. For example, in child care policy
research, duration models have been used to estimate the length of time that families
receive child care subsidies.
Grouping Methods
Grouping methods are techniques for classifying observations into meaningful
categories. One grouping method, discriminant analysis, identifies characteristics that
distinguish between groups. For example, a researcher could use discriminant analysis
to determine which characteristics identify families that seek child care subsidies and
which identify families that do not.
The second grouping method, cluster analysis, is used to classify similar individuals
together. For example, cluster analysis would be used to group together families who
hold similar views of child care.
Interagency Meeting on Subgroup Analysis
This meeting centered on innovative methods for conducting subgroup analysis and
discussions of guidelines for interpretation and reporting of subgroup analyses in
prevention and intervention research.
Multiple Equation Models
Multiple equation modeling, which is an extension of regression, is used to examine the
causal pathways from independent variables to the dependent variable. There are two
main types of multiple equation models:
Path analysis
Structural equation modeling
Path analysis
Allows researchers to examine multiple direct and indirect causes of a dependent, or
outcome, variable.
A path diagram is created that identifies the routes between the independent and
dependent variables
The paths can run directly from an independent variable to a dependent variable, or
they can run indirectly from an independent variable, through an intermediary variable,
to the dependent variable
The entire model is tested to determine the relative importance of each causal pathway
Structural equation modeling
Expands path analysis by allowing for multiple indicators of unobserved (or latent)
variables in the model.

DESCRIPTIVE DATA MINING

Descriptive mining is generally used to produce correlation, cross tabulation,

frequency etcetera. These techniques are determined to find the regularities in the data
and to reveal patterns. The other application of descriptive analysis is to discover the
captivating subgroups in the major part of the data.

Descriptive analytics focuses on the summarization and conversion of the data into
meaningful information for reporting and monitoring. Furthermore, it permits to examine
the data in a detailed way so that it would be able to answer easily about “what has
happened?” and “what is happening?”. Clustering, summarization, association are the
techniques categorized under descriptive mining.

PREDICTIVE DATA MINING

The primary objective of predictive mining is to predict future results instead of current
behaviour. It involves the supervised learning functions used for the prediction of the
target value. The methods fall under this mining category are the classification, time-
series analysis and regression. Data modelling is the necessity of the predictive
analysis, which works by utilizing some variables to anticipate the unknown future data
values for other variables.

Additionally, it also conducts the comparison among these supervised learning methods
for obtaining the prescience about the strength and weaknesses of each approach. This
whole process is performed to find out the most suitable method for extracting the
desired knowledge. The predictive analysis is used for providing information about
“what might happen?” and “why it might happen?”.

DATA DASHBOARD
A data dashboard is an information management tool that visually tracks, analyzes and
displays key performance indicators (KPI), metrics and key data points to monitor the
health of a business, department or specific process. They are customizable to meet the
specific needs of a department and company. Behind the scenes, a dashboard
connects to your files, attachments, services and API’s, but on the surface displays all
this data in the form of tables, line charts, bar charts and gauges. A data dashboard is
the most efficient way to track multiple data sources because it provides a central
location for businesses to monitor and analyze performance. Real-time monitoring
reduces the hours of analyzing and long line of communication that previously
challenged businesses.
DATA MINING
In simple words, data mining is defined as a process used to extract usable data from a
larger set of any raw data. It implies analysing data patterns in large batches of data
using one or more software. Data mining has applications in multiple fields, like science
and research. As an application of data mining, businesses can learn more about their
customers and develop more effective strategies related to various business functions
and in turn leverage resources in a more optimal and insightful manner. This helps
businesses be closer to their objective and make better decisions. Data mining involves
effective data collection and warehousing as well as computer processing. For
segmenting the data and evaluating the probability of future events, data mining uses
sophisticated mathematical algorithms. Data mining is also known as Knowledge
Discovery in Data (KDD).
BIG DATA
Big data is a term that describes the large volume of data – both structured and
unstructured – that inundates a business on a day-to-day basis. But it’s not the amount
of data that’s important. It’s what organizations do with the data that matters. Big data
can be analyzed for insights that lead to better decisions and strategic business moves.
Volume
Big data implies enormous volumes of data. It used to be employees created data. Now
that data is generated by machines, networks and human interaction on systems like
social media the volume of data to be analyzed is massive. Yet, Inderpal states that the
volume of data is not as much the problem as other V’s like veracity.
Variety
Variety refers to the many sources and types of data both structured and unstructured.
We used to store data from sources like spreadsheets and databases. Now data comes
in the form of emails, photos, videos, monitoring devices, PDFs, audio, etc. This variety
of unstructured data creates problems for storage, mining and analyzing data. Jeff Veis,
VP Solutions at HP Autonomy presented how HP is helping organizations deal with big
challenges including data variety.
Velocity
Big Data Velocity deals with the pace at which data flows in from sources like business
processes, machines, networks and human interaction with things like social media
sites, mobile devices, etc. The flow of data is massive and continuous. This real-time
data can help researchers and businesses make valuable decisions that provide
strategic competitive advantages and ROI if you are able to handle the velocity. Inderpal
suggest that sampling data can help deal with issues like volume and velocity.
Veracity
Big Data Veracity refers to the biases, noise and abnormality in data. Is the data that is
being stored, and mined meaningful to the problem being analyzed. Inderpal feel
veracity in data analysis is the biggest challenge when compares to things like volume
and velocity. In scoping out your big data strategy you need to have your team and
partners work to help keep your data clean and processes to keep ‘dirty data’ from
accumulating in your systems.
Validity
Like big data veracity is the issue of validity meaning is the data correct and accurate for
the intended use. Clearly valid data is key to making the right decisions. Phil Francisco,
VP of Product Management from IBM spoke about IBM’s big data strategy and tools
they offer to help with data veracity and validity.
Volatility
Big data volatility refers to how long is data valid and how long should it be stored. In
this world of real time data you need to determine at what point is data no longer
relevant to the current analysis.
Big data clearly deals with issues beyond volume, variety and velocity to other concerns
like veracity, validity and volatility. To hear about other big data trends and presentation
follow the Big Data Innovation Summit on twitter #BIGDBN.

REFERENCES:

Maisel, L (2014) : Predictive business analytics : forward-looking capabilities to improve

business performance.

Liebowitz, J. (2014), Business Analytics: an introduction

Evans, J (2013) Business analytics: methods, models, and decisions