What is Data Analytics? | What is Data Analytics and its Future Scope

The process of extracting insights from data is known as data analytics. It includes data analysis and management processes, tools, and techniques such as data collection, organization, and storage. The primary goal of data analytics is to apply statistical analysis and technology to data in order to identify trends and solve problems.

Data analytics has grown in importance in the enterprise as a tool for analyzing and shaping business processes, as well as for improving decision-making and business results. Data analytics uses a variety of disciplines, such as computer programming, mathematics, and statistics, to analyze data in order to describe, predict, and improve performance. Data analytics teams use a variety of data management techniques, such as data mining, data cleansing, data transformation, data modeling, and more, to ensure robust analysis.  

What are the four types of data analytics?

Analytics is classified into four types: descriptive analytics, which attempts to describe what occurred at a specific point in time; diagnostic analytics, which determines why something occurred; predictive analytics, which determines the likelihood of something occurring in the future; and prescriptive analytics, which provides recommended actions to take to achieve the desired outcome. 

To be more specific:

• Descriptive analytics identifies trends and patterns in historical and current data from multiple sources to describe the current state or a specified historical state. This is the domain of business intelligence in business analytics (BI).  

• Diagnostic analytics examines data (often generated through descriptive analytics) to determine the factors or causes of past performance.  

• Predictive analytics makes predictions about future outcomes by applying techniques such as statistical modeling, forecasting, and machine learning to the output of descriptive and diagnostic analytics. Predictive analytics is frequently regarded as a subset of “advanced analytics,” and it frequently relies on machine learning and/or deep learning.  

• Prescriptive analytics is a type of advanced analytics that uses testing and other techniques to recommend specific solutions that will produce the desired results. Predictive analytics in business employs machine learning, business rules, and algorithms.  

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Data Analytics Methods And Techniques: 

Some of the most popular data analytics methods and techniques are as follows: 

• Regression Analysis:

Regression analysis is a set of statistical processes that are used to estimate the relationships between variables in order to determine how changes to one or more variables may affect others.  

• Factor Analysis:

 Factor analysis is a statistical method for reducing a large data set to a smaller, more manageable one. This has the added advantage of frequently revealing hidden patterns. In the business world, factor analysis is frequently used to investigate issues such as customer loyalty.  

• Cohort Analysis:

Cohort analysis is used to divide a dataset into groups with similar characteristics, or cohorts, for analysis. This is frequently used to better understand customer segments.  

• Cluster Analysis:

Cluster analysis is defined by Statistics Solutions as “a class of techniques used to classify objects or cases into relative groups called clusters.” It can be used to reveal structures in data — for example, insurance companies may use cluster analysis to investigate why certain locations are associated with specific insurance claims.  

• Time-series Analysis:

Time series analysis is defined by Statistics Solutions as “a statistical technique that deals with time series data, or trend analysis.” Time series data is data that is organized in a series of specific time periods or intervals.” Time series analysis, for example, can be used to identify trends and cycles over time, such as weekly sales figures. It is frequently used to forecast economic and sales data.  

• Sentiment Analysis:

Sentiment analysis employs techniques such as natural language processing, text analysis, computational linguistics, and others to comprehend the emotions expressed in data. While the previous six methods focus on analyzing quantitative data (data that can be measured), sentiment analysis focuses on interpreting and categorizing qualitative data by organizing it into themes. It is frequently used to ascertain how customers perceive a brand, product, or service.  

Data Analytics tools:

Some of the most popular Data Analytics tools are as follows: 

• Apache Spark:

An open-source data science platform for big data processing and cluster computing engine development.  

• Excel:

Microsoft’s spreadsheet software is probably the most popular analytics tool, particularly for mathematical analysis and tabular reporting. 

• Looker:

Google’s data analytics and business intelligence platform. 

• Power BI:

Microsoft’s data visualization and analysis tool, which is used to create and distribute reports and dashboards.  

• Python:

An open-source programming language for extracting, summarizing, and visualizing data.  

• Qlik:

A collection of data analytics, data integration, and programming platforms for data exploration and visualization.  

• Quick Sight:

Amazon’s BI and analytics cloud service is designed to integrate with cloud data sources. 

• R:

A data analytics tool for statistical analysis and graphical modeling that is open source.  

• RapidMiner:

A data science platform with a graphical workflow designer. 

• SAS:

Business intelligence and data mining analytics platform. 

• Sisense:

A well-known platform for self-service business intelligence. 

• Tableau:

Salesforce data analysis software for creating dashboards, maps, and visualizations from data. 

• Talend:

Data engineers, data architects, analysts, and developers use this platform for big data file transformations and loading.  

Data Analytics vs Data Science:

Data analytics and data science are inextricably linked. Data analytics is a subset of data science that is used to understand the structure of an organization’s data. In general, data analytics produces reports and visualizations.

Analytics output is used in data science to study and solve problems. The distinction between data analytics and data science is frequently viewed as one of timescale. Data analytics describes the current or historical state of reality, whereas data science predicts and/or understands the future. 

Data Analytics vs Data Analysis:

While the terms data analytics and data analysis are frequently used interchangeably, data analysis is a subset of data analytics that deals with examining, cleansing, transforming, and modeling data in order to draw conclusions. Data analytics refers to the tools and techniques used to analyze data.  

Data Analytics vs Business Analytics:

Another subset of data analytics is business analytics. Business analytics employs data analytics techniques such as data mining, statistical analysis, and predictive modeling to help businesses make better decisions.

Data Analytics examples:

Data analytics is used by organizations across all industries to improve operations, increase revenue, and facilitate digital transformations. Here are three instances:   

• With predictive analytics, UPS provides resilience and flexibility:

UPS developed the Harmonized Enterprise Analytics Tool (HEAT) to assist it in capturing and analyzing customer data, operational data, and planning data in order to track the real-time status of every package as it moves across its network. The tool assists it in tracking the approximately 21 million packages it delivers each day.  

• Owens Corning uses predictive analytics to develop turbine blades:

With the assistance of its analytics center of excellence, manufacturer Owens Corning has used predictive analytics to streamline the process of putting the binders used in the production of glass fabrics for wind turbine blades to the test. Analytics has assisted the company in reducing the testing time for any given new material from 10 days to approximately two hours.  

• Kaiser Permanente uses analytics to reduce wait times:

Kaiser Permanente has been using analytics, machine learning, and AI to overhaul the data operations of its 39 hospitals and over 700 medical offices in the United States since 2015. It employs analytics to better anticipate and resolve potential bottlenecks, allowing it to provide better patient care while improving daily operations efficiency.  

Data Analytics Salaries:

According to PayScale data, the following are some of the most popular job titles in data analytics, as well as the average salary for each position: 

1. Analytics manager: $71K-$131K 
2. Business analyst: $47K-$84K 
3. Business analyst, IT: $51K-$100K 
4. Business intelligence analyst: $52K-$97K 
5. Data analyst: $45K-$87K 
6. Market research analyst: $41K-$77K 
7. Operations research analyst: $47K-$117K 
8. Quantitative analyst: $60K-$132K 
9. Senior business analyst: $65K-$117K 
10. Statistician: $55K-$118K 

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