There’s no doubt data analytics and business intelligence tools are evolving at a rapid pace, yet the average business stakeholder remains unaware of the significant impact data analytics can have on increasing efficiency, reducing costs and improving decision-making skills for companies.
According to one Mckinsey report focused on the healthcare industry,
In 2019, our focus was on the intelligent experience and how
Data analytics will become more embedded in day-to-day processes specifically to provide analytics and AI insights within the flow of business, in the context of where decisions are being made and enabling a seamless flow from insight to action.
Here are the top three ways analytics will drive business transformation and change the way we work in 2020.
- Natural Language Queries will advance
Natural Language Processing (NLP) has the ability to understand and interpret human language the way it is written or spoken. The objective of NLP is to make computers/machines as intelligent as human beings in understanding language.
In 2020, we will see significant advancements in both natural language queries and conversational analytics which will further help in the democratization of analytics. The promise of self serve analytics has been around for a while now, but has never fully materialized. Natural language processing advancements, along with AI-powered query construction can help bridge that gap.
- Data science and traditional data analytics will converge
You will see a convergence of data science and traditional analytics in 2020. Robust analytics capabilities will be seamlessly married with data science findings to provide a more complete experience.
Traditionally, business users have had to interpret analytics and decide what course of action to take. This will begin to change. This will begin to change as data science and ML are utilized to produce models that provide prescriptive actions to business users rather than the users having to interpret analytics themselves.
- AI and ML will be embedded within analytics solutions
A big area to watch for will be the embedding of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) specifically within analytics solutions. Salesforce’s Einstein Analytics already has this capability baked in, while other solutions have ways of accomplishing similar functionality. Overall, the convergence of AI and analytics will become more seamless over the next few years.
Analytics and machine learning/AI are becoming more commonly embraced in business operations and in 2020, we hope to see more leading companies adopting it. With increased reliance on new tools for data analytics, coupled with an accelerated need to access external data stores, networks and IoT devices, interconnectivity will be a key to building a cohesive data analytics machine for your business.
To stay competitive this year, it will be critical to plan well in advance for strategic investments and to create processes and strategies for maintaining clean data across all systems. Overall, 2020 will likely mark further advancements in analytics, with analytics solutions becoming easier to use, more intelligent and more prescriptive.
