Analytics-as-a-Service: Towards the future of Business Analytics

Today, businesses are growing at a tremendous pace and so is the data. Simultaneously, the way businesses used to process is also changing, they are now looking to utilize the historical and the continuous stream of data to generate game-changing insights. It is however easier said than done. To analyze these huge datasets, a business needs to invest in various resources including manpower, hardware, and software. This could certainly not be everyone's cup of tea. Analytics as a service is something that can resolve this problem. It enables the users to utilize web-based technologies to do the analysis rather than investing in the traditional on-site system. Businesses can now have vendors who provide access to analytics for a fee so that businesses do not have to manage multiple software for it.

This steadily increasing need for analytics is not limited to any one sector but spreads across industries like manufacturing, retail, health, etc, and verticals like HR, finance, operations, etc. The increasing number of IoT devices and the need for analytics without huge investments have led to the increased demand. According to MarketsandMarkets forecast, the analytics as a service market size with growing at 23.2% CAGR from US 4.3 billion in 2019 to USD 12.1 billion by 2024. This market is essentially segmented into financial, risk, marketing, web, supply chain, security, IT, and other analytics solution.
Analytics-as-a-Service and opportunities

Given the market is segmented into various industries and segments and comprises companies of various needs, the opportunity for both AaaS providers and users are infinite. It can be easily included in various services packages such as Enterprise resources planning, manufacturing execution systems, cloud and security services. It can also be integrated with any clients' business application.

Below are the few ways Analytics-as-a-Service positively affects business.

Insights for businesses

The market is changing rapidly, with continuously growing consumer expectations, dynamic macroeconomic conditions, and other factors. Business not just needs to keep up the pace with these everyday challenges but also need to stay a step ahead. It simply can not be done without the efficient use of analytics. Businesses of every shape and size have this need and hence Analytics-as-a-Service can play a crucial role by helping them pave the journey from data to insights. With it, businesses do not have to develop the capability in-house or invest precious resources. Business leaders can also get predictive insights to make forward-looking strategies and make data-driven decisions on an everyday basis.

Enhancing customer experience

For any industry in the world, the customer is the king. To provide an excellent experience and keeping them loyal is one of the most important things for a business. With the opening of online channels, data collection has surged for good, but at the same time, it pushes companies to provide an omnichannel experience to customers. AaaS can help companies in their endeavor to unify the data from all the sources and generate a single source of truth. Using this, businesses will be able to generate 360 degrees predictive and real-time analytics on customers and can enhance their overall experience.

Predictive Insights for everyone

AI-driven analytics is what all businesses are looking for. From delivering deep insights to highly accurate predictions, its applications are widespread. From demand forecasting in retail and manufacturing, predictive maintenance in manufacturing to designing smarter and personalized marketing campaigns, machine learning's usage is not limited to the top tier but to all the employees.

With AaaS, organizations can provide access to this amazing technology to everyone and enable data-driven decision-making across the hierarchy. This can help in saving valuable time and resources at all levels enhancing the pace of transformation within the organization.

Competitive analysis

With AaaS, companies can go well ahead of the standard analytics application, they get to utilize ML-based analytics, which certainly gives them an edge. Businesses can now gather data from multiple sources and track industry trends and seasonal changes and monitor their business accordingly. With deep data analysis, they can compare their performance with their competitors and make better-targeted strategies for better results.

Quick analysis and enhanced reporting: Unlike excel, with AaaS, users can analyze data faster and with much ease by utilizing the self-service capability. For reporting, users can easily generate specific reports for specific purposes and make decisions based on them. With excellent data visualization, these reports are easy to understand and share with peers for quick insights sharing.

The markets are unstoppable and every day more businesses will surface, to stay competitive, businesses ought to utilize data analysis on a day-to-day basis. This will definitely pave a smoother way for the adoption of Analytics-as-a-service. It will not just empower businesses around the world but will also change the way businesses have worked till now and improve customer experience by leaps and bounds.